CZBQ v Minister for Immigration
[2014] FCCA 2952
•19 December 2014
FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF AUSTRALIA
| CZBQ v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & ANOR | [2014] FCCA 2952 |
| Catchwords: ADMINISTRATIVE LAW – Allegation that the Tribunal’s decision affected by jurisdictional error by reason that the Tribunal failed to make enquiries and failed to consider a document. |
| Legislation: Migration Act 1958, ss.36, 424, 427, 474 |
| Cases Cited: Plaintiff S157/2002 v Commonwealth (2003) 211 CLR 476 Minister for Immigration & Citizenship v SZIAI (2009) 83 ALJR 1123 Minister for Immigration & Citizenship v Le (2007) 164 FCR 151 Khant v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship (2009) 112 ALD 241 Minister for Immigration & Citizenship v SZGUR (2011) 241 CLR 594 |
| Applicant: | CZBQ |
| First Respondent: | MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & BORDER PROTECTION |
| Second Respondent: | REFUGEE REVIEW TRIBUNAL |
| File Number: | CAG 93 of 2012 |
| Judgment of: | Judge Cameron |
| Hearing date: | 30 October 2013 |
| Date of Last Submission: | 30 October 2013 |
| Delivered at: | Sydney |
| Delivered on: | 19 December 2014 |
REPRESENTATION
| Solicitors for the Applicant: | Mr T. Silva of Silva Solicitors |
| Solicitors for the Respondents: | Ms S. Burnett of Clayton Utz |
ORDERS
The name of the first respondent be amended in the Court record to “Minister for Immigration and Border Protection”.
The application be dismissed.
| FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT SYDNEY |
CAG 93 of 2012
| CZBQ |
Applicant
And
| MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & BORDER PROTECTION |
First Respondent
| REFUGEE REVIEW TRIBUNAL |
Second Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
Introduction
The applicant is a citizen of Sri Lanka who, on 4 June 2012, lodged an application for a protection visa alleging that he feared persecution in Sri Lanka because of his ethnicity and his and his family’s political opinions. On 3 July 2012 the applicant’s application was refused by a delegate of the first respondent (“Minister”). The applicant then applied to the second respondent (“Tribunal”) for a review of that departmental decision. He was unsuccessful before the Tribunal and has applied to this Court for judicial review of the Tribunal’s decision.
In these judicial review proceedings the Court cannot rehear the applicant’s application for a visa. Its task is to determine whether the Tribunal’s decision is affected by jurisdictional error as that is the only basis upon which it can be set aside: s.474 of the Act; Plaintiff S157/2002 v Commonwealth (2003) 211 CLR 476.
For the reasons which follow, the application will be dismissed.
Background facts
The applicant made the following claims in a statement attached to his protection visa application:
a)his uncle, who had been a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (“LTTE”), had died during the Sri Lankan civil war. As a result, he believed the military was after him because they thought he was related to and worked with the LTTE;
b)his grandfather had been shot by the Indian army twenty-six years earlier because he was suspected of having links to the LTTE;
c)four or five years earlier, while on a trip to Colombo with two of his (the applicant’s) maternal uncles, his father was detained and tortured for about two months because he was suspected of having links to the LTTE;
d)approximately two or three months after his father was released, he was again detained by the police for two to three weeks and tortured. After his father was released from that detention, an unknown person continuously telephoned and threatened his father;
e)four or five years earlier “they” had tried to “take” him after school. A white van had approached him but he saw it and ran to his teacher’s house. He waited until dark before going home;
f)if he returned to Sri Lanka he faced a real chance of being kidnapped at the airport by government officials, the military or para-military groups. The fact that he had sought asylum in Australia would put him at more risk; and
g)if he returned to Sri Lanka he would not be treated well because of his Tamil ethnicity. He would also be targeted because he was Catholic.
In support of his application the applicant relevantly provided:
a)an untranslated article from an unidentified newspaper which purportedly mentioned his uncle;
b)an International Committee for the Red Cross “Detention Attestation” attesting that his father had been detained at a prison in 2005;
c)certificates certifying that he had taken part in “Vocation Discernment Camps” in his home area, Batticaloa, in August 2007, April 2008 and August 2008; and
d)a letter from the parish priest of a church in Batticaloa, stating that the applicant was known to him, that he came from a very good practising Catholic family and had been involved in parish mission work.
On 27 August 2012 the applicant’s representatives provided the Tribunal with submissions in which they relevantly claimed that the applicant’s grandfather had been shot by the Indian army in 1993 while on his way home from his daughter’s house during a night curfew. It was claimed that when the applicant had been approached by the white van on his way from school, he had run back to the school. The applicant’s representatives submitted that two or three months after the applicant’s father had been arrested while on his way to Colombo, he had been arrested again while driving a bus and detained for a few weeks on suspicion of being an LTTE member. It was also submitted that the applicant’s father had been beaten with cricket bats and an axe handle following a family dispute in which the police were involved.
The applicant attended a Tribunal hearing on 30 August 2012. Immediately prior to the hearing he provided the Tribunal with the following documents:
a)a letter from the Roman Catholic bishop of Batticaloa stating that the applicant’s father had been gaoled several times on suspicion of being an LTTE supporter and that his family could not stay in one place. The bishop stated that the applicant had fled Sri Lanka because he had been threatened by armed groups for supporting other groups during the provincial council elections;
b)a second letter from the parish priest stating that the applicant’s father had been gaoled several times on suspicion of being an LTTE member and had been attacked because he had driven a vehicle for a local politician; and
c)a detention order dated 23 November 2009 relating to the applicant’s father.
The applicant made the following claims at the hearing:
a)his grandfather had been shot by the Sri Lankan army while walking to his (the applicant’s) aunt’s house for dinner after returning late from work. The applicant then said that his grandfather had been on his way home after dinner at his aunt’s house. Someone from the group that had shot his grandfather had come to their house and said that his grandfather had been an LTTE member;
b)his father had been caught transporting batteries, which were banned, to his brother and was accused of buying them for the LTTE. Later the police came to their house. His father sent him and his siblings to his aunt’s house and when they returned the next morning, their mother told them that the police had taken his father. He did not know how long his father was detained but he was beaten and had to be hospitalised for ten to fifteen days after his release;
c)when his father was detained while on his way Colombo in 2005, he was detained for one month on suspicion of being an LTTE member. He was falsely charged with being an LTTE supporter and they had to pay a thirty thousand rupee bribe for him to be released;
d)after his release his father was threatened over the phone. He was not sure how long his father was threatened for;
e)in November 2009 his father had tried to leave Sri Lanka by boat but was caught by the police who beat him, saying he was trying to escape and that he was an LTTE supporter. He was detained at a police station for fifty days and then transferred to another place where he was detained for forty more days. He could not remember if his father had been detained between 2005 and 2009 because he had been young and had not known much;
f)his paternal aunt’s husband had been shot in 2009. A group of people had burst into a family function at which he had been present and had taken that uncle and another of his uncles. His aunt’s husband was shot in front of his house but his other uncle was brought back. He did not know what group it was but suspected it was affiliated with the Sri Lankan authorities;
g)in June 2006 or 2007, he and his friends were approached by a white van while walking to a teacher’s house after school. The people in the van opened the door and he and his friends ran to the teacher’s house and hid; and
h)he had distributed leaflets and posted bills in the 2009 local elections. He could not remember the name of the party he had supported but it helped Tamil people and had the word Tamil in its name. He had not been bullied by other parties while he was in Sri Lanka but his father had told him that “they” were always asking about him since he had left.
The applicant’s paternal aunt gave evidence at the Tribunal hearing and relevantly claimed that her father, the applicant’s grandfather, had been shot by the Sri Lankan army one night in 1993 while returning from her aunt’s house after curfew. She claimed that the applicant’s father, her brother, had been detained once while travelling to Colombo and again for three or four months in 2009 after being prevented from leaving the country.
Following the Tribunal hearing, the Tribunal reviewed submissions dated 24 September 2012 from the applicant’s representatives. Attached to the submissions was a letter from the Member of Parliament (“MP”) for Batticaloa stating that the applicant’s father had been arrested and detained in 2005 and 2009 on suspicion of being an LTTE supporter. The MP stated that the applicant had actively participated in parliamentary elections in 2010 in support of the Tamil National Alliance (“TNA”) which had led to him receiving threats. The MP also stated that the applicant had been questioned by the authorities and attempts had been made to kidnap him. The submissions also attached a copy of an affidavit sworn by the applicant’s father on 17 September 2012 in which he gave the following evidence:
a)his father was shot in 1993 after he had finished having dinner at his sister’s house and had gone to feed his dog after curfew. When they went to collect his body the Sri Lankan army said that his death had been a result of cross-fire between them and the LTTE and wanted the family to sign a statement confirming that he was an LTTE member;
b)in about 1995 the LTTE had required the eldest child of each family to assist them. Because he did not want to send his eldest daughter, he was forced to deliver fruits and batteries for the LTTE. When the Sri Lankan army found out, they arrested, beat and detained him for a night. They also started to monitor him;
c)one of his brothers had disappeared in 1997. They later found out that he had been an LTTE member killed during the civil war;
d)in 2005 he was arrested and detained for a month by the Sri Lankan army on his way to Colombo because they said he was a member of the LTTE. In 2009 he was arrested while trying to leave Sri Lanka. He was detained at a camp for sixty days and at another camp for forty days; and
e)between 2010 and 2011 he had been a driver for the TNA and had been threatened by opposition parties as a result. He had also been beaten for assisting his brother-in-law run an election campaign.
The Tribunal’s decision and reasons
After discussing the claims made by the applicant and the evidence before it, the Tribunal found that it was not satisfied that the applicant is a person to whom Australia has protection obligations under the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951, amended by the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees 1967 (“Convention”) or s.36(2)(aa) of the Act. The Tribunal’s decision was based on the following findings and reasons:
a)the Tribunal accepted that the applicant’s grandfather had died in 1993 but, due to the inconsistencies in the applicant’s evidence and that of his relatives about the circumstances of that event, the Tribunal was not satisfied about the events surrounding the applicant’s grandfather’s death. Even accepting that the applicant’s grandfather had been killed after he broke a curfew and went outside, the only consistent information provided by the applicant and his family, the Tribunal did not accept that that had had a bearing on the applicant given his grandfather’s death had occurred nineteen years earlier. Similarly, the Tribunal did not accept that the applicant’s uncle’s association with the LTTE and his death in 1998 would result in the applicant facing a real chance of persecution given he had died fourteen years earlier and the applicant had not claimed to have experienced problems in the past because of his uncle’s association with the LTTE;
b)the Tribunal found that the applicant’s father had only been detained for a period of one month in 2005 when he travelled to Colombo and had not been detained prior to or after that because of any suspected involvement or association with the LTTE or because of an alleged attempt to depart Sri Lanka illegally. In this connection:
i)given the inconsistencies between the applicant’s evidence at its hearing and in the submission provided by his representatives and that of his father, the Tribunal did not accept that the applicant’s father had been detained, beaten and hospitalised because he had been found with batteries in his possession;
ii)although it found the applicant’s evidence about his father’s detention while on his way to Colombo inconsistent, the Tribunal nevertheless accepted that the applicant’s father and uncles might have been stopped, questioned and detained as Tamil males travelling from the eastern province. However, it did not accept that two to three months after that incident the applicant’s father had been taken from his village for two to three weeks and tortured. This was because this claim was only raised in the applicant’s original statement and in the applicant’s representatives’ submission of 27 August 2012 but was not mentioned by the applicant’s father or raised by the applicant at the Tribunal hearing. The Tribunal found that the applicant’s failure to mention this event at its hearing was because it had not occurred and that he had included it in his written statement in an effort to bolster his claims. Because it did not accept that the applicant’s father had been detained two or three months after his release from detention in Colombo, the Tribunal did not accept the associated claim that he had been called and threatened continuously after his release, also finding the applicant’s evidence on that issue vague; and
iii)the Tribunal did not accept that the applicant’s father had been detained for one hundred days in 2009 while trying to leave Sri Lanka illegally. It noted that the applicant had first made that claim at its hearing and found it implausible that he would have failed to refer to his father’s most recent and lengthy period of detention earlier than at its hearing. The Tribunal noted that the detention order provided by the applicant to support that claim had no official quality, did not identify who issued the order, misspelt his father’s name and could have been typed by anyone. Based on that, and country information suggesting that it was relatively easy to obtain fraudulent documents in Sri Lanka, the Tribunal gave the document little weight;
c)the Tribunal did not accept the applicant’s father’s claims of political support for the TNA or involvement in any election. In this connection, it noted that those claims were made for the first time in the applicant’s father’s affidavit and had not been raised by the applicant at any point in the process. The Tribunal found it implausible that if the applicant’s father had been a supporter of the TNA and had subsequently experienced problems, including having his family threatened, the applicant would not have made a reference to it;
d)the Tribunal did not accept that one of the applicant’s uncles had been shot at a family gathering because the applicant had failed to mention the event in his statement despite claiming to have been present when it occurred. Similarly, the Tribunal did not accept that the applicant’s father had been beaten with cricket bats and an axe handle as a result of a family dispute, noting that this claim was only raised in the applicant’s representatives’ submissions and not by the applicant himself;
e)although accepting that an abduction attempt might have been made on the applicant, in light of the fact that the attempt had occurred five or six years earlier and nothing else had happened to the applicant, the Tribunal did not accept that the event had any relevance to what might happen to the applicant if he returned to Sri Lanka;
f)for the following reasons the Tribunal did not accept that the applicant had engaged in any political activities in Sri Lanka:
i)the applicant had not mentioned any alleged political activities prior to the Tribunal hearing. The Tribunal did not accept the applicant’s explanation for having failed to do so;
ii)the applicant was unable to identify the party he supported during the 2009 elections;
iii)according to country information, there were no local authority elections in Batticaloa in 2009; and
iv)the Tribunal did not accept that people had visited the applicant’s father because of the applicant’s claimed political activities. The Tribunal found it implausible that these people would have waited until the applicant left Sri Lanka, three years after the claimed elections, to bully him or his father;
g)the Tribunal placed little or no weight on some of the documents produced by the applicant in support of his claims. In this connection:
i)the Tribunal placed little weight on the letter from the Bishop of Batticaloa dated 24 August 2012, noting that the applicant had not claimed that he had been involved in the provincial council elections, that he had been threatened by armed groups, or that his family had had to move because of harassment by security forces as claimed in that letter;
ii)the Tribunal placed no weight on the second letter from the parish priest, noting that his original letter had made no reference to any problems which the applicant and his family had faced in Sri Lanka and it did not accept, if the applicant’s life was being spoilt by his father’s problems, as was stated in the second letter, that the priest would have failed to mention it in his first letter; and
iii)the Tribunal placed no weight on the letter from the MP for Batticaloa, noting that its claims that the applicant had been questioned by the authorities and that Tamil armed groups had attempted to kidnap him contradicted the applicant’s claim that nothing had happened to him apart from one abduction attempt in 2006 or 2007;
h)even making allowances for the fact that the applicant was young throughout much of the period in which the events related to his claim for protection allegedly occurred, the Tribunal found that his failure to raise events that had happened when he was older raised serious concerns about the credibility of his claims. The Tribunal found that the applicant had embellished most of his claims in an effort to bolster his claim for protection;
i)considering the applicant’s profile as a young Tamil male who had not experienced any difficulties in the past from the authorities and had no association with the LTTE, the Tribunal did not accept that there was a real chance that he would face harm because of his Tamil ethnicity;
j)on the basis of country information, the Tribunal did not accept that there was a real chance that the applicant would face persecution as a failed asylum seeker if he returned to Sri Lanka. It noted that country information suggested that the Sri Lankan authorities lacked procedures to identify people who had sought asylum in Australia and found that even if such an identification were made, the applicant would not suffer any harm beyond, at most, being detained for some hours on arrival for questioning. Referring to country information which indicated that failed asylum seekers could be subject to various forms of abuse if they were perceived or had actual links to the LTTE, the Tribunal did not accept, because he had not come to the attention of the authorities or been politically active in the past, that the applicant would face harm as a failed asylum seeker; and
k)based on country information, the Tribunal found that the applicant might have breached the terms of Sri Lanka’s Immigration and Emigration Act. It found that even if it accepted that the applicant would face a penalty for departing Sri Lanka illegally, there was nothing to suggest that that would represent more than the enforcement of a law of general application, or that the applicant would be singled out for persecution, or for heavier penalties, in a discriminatory manner.
Proceedings in this Court
In his further amended application the applicant alleged:
1.The Tribunal made jurisdictional error since it failed to make inquiries necessary to complete its review.
Particulars
The Tribunal considered the issue of the applicant’s father’s detention in 2009 critical to the applicant’s overall case.
It failed to inquire into the authenticity and the truthfulness of two vital documents in relation to the 2009 detention of his father:
(a)CB 224 – “Detention Order” made by the Additional Secretary, Ministry of Defence. …
The further amended application also raised other issues but they were not pressed.
Applicant’s submissions
The remaining allegation concerned the applicant’s claim at the Tribunal hearing that his father had been detained in 2009. As recorded earlier, the Tribunal did not accept that allegation. In reaching that conclusion, the Tribunal noted that the applicant had relied on a document which purported to be an order corroborative of the detention alleged but accorded little weight to it because of concerns over its authenticity. Those concerns arose because, the Tribunal said, the document did not identify by whom it had been issued, misspelt the applicant’s father’s name, had no official quality and could have been typed by anyone. The Tribunal also noted that information available to it indicated that fraudulent documents were easy to obtain in Sri Lanka.
The applicant submitted that the detention order document had been critical to the credibility of his allegation that his father had been perceived to have had links to the LTTE which had, in turn, been critical to his claim to fear persecution in Sri Lanka on the basis that he (too) would be perceived to have links with the LTTE. In substance he submitted that if the Tribunal had accepted that his father had been detained in 2009 because of a perception that he had links to the LTTE, it might have come to a different view of his, the applicant’s, credibility.
The applicant submitted that the Tribunal had had a duty to enquire into the authenticity of the purported detention order but had not done so and so its decision was affected by jurisdictional error.Referring to Minister for Immigration & Citizenship v SZIAI (2009) 83 ALJR 1123 the applicant submitted that the authenticity of the detention order would have been easily ascertainable by making a telephone or written enquiry of the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry or the Sri Lankan High Commission in Canberra and that a quick response would have been received, at least from the latter. He submitted that checking the authenticity of the detention order with the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry was a (mere) administrative action.
The applicant also submitted that he had impliedly asked the Tribunal to enquire into the authenticity of the detention order in that, when telling the Tribunal that he would provide the order, he had in a sense been challenging the Tribunal to check it. He submitted that if the Tribunal had had concerns about making enquiries with the authorities he claimed to fear, it could have sought his consent to do so. The applicant also submitted that the failure to contact the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry was so unreasonable that no reasonable decision-maker would have failed to make that enquiry with the consequence that the Tribunal had failed to discharge its duty to review his case.
The applicant noted the Tribunal’s observations on the characteristics of the purported detention order and addressed submissions to the accuracy and reasonableness of those observations. He submitted that the Tribunal’s factual findings concerning the document and this aspect of the claim more generally were, in one respect, demonstrably incorrect, and in other respects not the appropriate findings. The applicant argued that the Tribunal’s demonstrably incorrect criticism of the document, that the document did not identify who had purportedly caused it to be issued, indicated that the Tribunal had not given sufficient attention to that document. He submitted that that finding was unreasonable, arbitrary and negligent and that therefore the Tribunal had not discharged its duty to review. The Minister conceded that the Tribunal was mistaken in making that statement.
Consideration
In SZIAI it was said:
... The duty imposed upon the Tribunal by the Migration Act is a duty to review. It may be that a failure to make an obvious inquiry about a critical fact, the existence of which is easily ascertained, could, in some circumstances, supply a sufficient link to the outcome to constitute a failure to review. If so, such a failure could give rise to jurisdictional error by constructive failure to exercise jurisdiction. It may be that failure to make such an inquiry results in a decision being affected in some other way that manifests itself as jurisdictional error. … (reference omitted) (at 1129 [25] per French CJ, Gummow, Hayne, Crennan, Kiefel and Bell JJ)
In relation to their Honours’ latter statement, a failure to enquire may amount to jurisdictional error if it is sufficiently unreasonable: SZIAI at 1129 [26], Minister for Immigration & Citizenship v Le (2007) 164 FCR 151 at 172-173 [60] and Khant v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship (2009) 112 ALD 241 at 255 [67].
The applicant’s arguments depended first and foremost on the proposition that if the Tribunal had accepted that his father had been detained in 2009 because of a perception that he had links to the LTTE, it might have come to a different view of his own credibility. In that connection, the Tribunal’s decision states at para.56 that the applicant had claimed that harm might befall him because of perceptions held about his father.
It is far from obvious that the genuineness of the purported detention order was critical to the Tribunal’s decision. If it had been determined to be genuine, the Tribunal’s opinion on whether the applicant faced a real risk of persecution if he returned to Sri Lanka might have been different but, given all the other matters which the Tribunal relied on in reaching its decision, that is far from certain. In those circumstances, it is difficult to conclude that the failure to make the enquiry supplied a sufficient link to the outcome before the Tribunal to constitute a failure to review. Consequently, I do not find that the Tribunal was required to make the enquiry identified by the applicant.
However, if I am wrong in that conclusion, although an enquiry of the Sri Lankan government would probably have been reasonably easy and would probably have determined the genuineness of the purported detention order one way or the other, there is no evidence on either of those matters and any conclusions on them can only be speculative. As a result there is no basis to find that the postulated enquiry would have been easy or would have revealed a fact critical to the review.
Moreover, an enquiry of the Sri Lankan government might have exposed the applicant to many risks. The applicant said in his address in reply that the Tribunal could have asked him for permission to make the enquiry but if permission was needed, and it must be accepted to have been needed in this case, then the enquiry was not obviously one which should have been made.
Alternative bases for the existence of a duty to enquire might be relevant, such as unreasonableness of the sort discussed in Le and Khant. However, given all the matters considered above in the context of the SZIAI test, I am not persuaded that any decision to not make the enquiry, if indeed such a decision was made, was one which no reasonable Tribunal would have made and no alternative basis to find the existence of jurisdictional error was advanced.
Further on the subject of unreasonableness, I do not agree that the applicant did implicitly request the Tribunal to make the postulated enquiry. The relevant exchange appears at page 28 of the transcript of the Tribunal hearing:
Tribunal:The other thing I want to raise is the fact that this claim about your father being arrested and detained for 90 days in November 2009, again this is the first time this has been raised by you. It has not been mentioned in your statement and has not been referred to in the detailed submission provided by your adviser just a few days ago. Today is the first time you’ve raised this. Given the seriousness of this particular incident and the fact that you’ve provided documentation now as well to support this, I have some real concerns that this isn’t a credible claim; that you have raised this in an effort to bolster your case.
Applicant:I’ve proved this. I’ve sent you a letter from Colombo.
The applicant submitted that an implicit request to enquire into the genuineness of the purported detention order was contained in his response to the Tribunal’s expression of concern but I do not agree that such an inference should be drawn from those words. But, in any event, in Minister for Immigration & Citizenship v SZGUR (2011) 241 CLR 594 it was held that the Tribunal is under no obligation to consider making enquiries under s.424 of the Act or to request the Secretary of the Minister’s department to make enquiries under s.427, even if asked to do so. Absent a duty even to consider making enquiries, unless the Tribunal decided to consider making enquiries, no question arises concerning whether any exercise of discretion was unreasonable. It has not been shown that the Tribunal did consider whether to enquire into the genuineness of the purported detention order which, given that no request that it do so was made, is unsurprising in light of the other circumstances attaching to the document and the postulated enquiry.
Finally, the applicant’s submissions concerning the Tribunal’s critical observations on aspects of the purported detention order were unrelated to the ground of the application which he pressed. It appears that the applicant sought, without leave, to amend his application to allege that the Tribunal’s consideration of the purported detention order was so deficient that its decision on the review was affected by jurisdictional error. As the Minister did not object to the applicant expanding the scope of his application I will consider this additional issue notwithstanding that leave to raise it was not sought or granted.
Although the applicant submitted that the Tribunal made wrong findings about a number of matters, with the exception of the one concerning whether the purported detention order identified the person who had caused it to be issued, those conclusions were no more than ones with which the applicant disagreed but which were open to the Tribunal to make. The applicant did not suggest otherwise.
The observation that the purported detention order did not identify who had ostensibly caused it to be issued was plainly wrong and reflected an inadequate consideration of the document. However, it was a mistake of little significance when the Tribunal’s other criticisms of the document, which directly concerned its authenticity, are taken into account. Moreover, those criticisms indicated that the Tribunal had, indeed, considered the document. The fact that it made a mistake about one aspect of the document does not demonstrate otherwise.
Conclusion
Jurisdictional error on the part of the Tribunal has not been demonstrated.
Consequently, the application will be dismissed.
I certify that the preceding thirty-two (32) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for judgment of Judge Cameron
Associate:
Date: 19 December 2014
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