DGT17 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs
[2022] FedCFamC2G 988
Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia
(DIVISION 2)
DGT17 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs [2022] FedCFamC2G 988
File number: MLG 1564 of 2017 Judgment of: JUDGE LADHAMS Date of judgment: 29 November 2022 Catchwords: MIGRATION – application for judicial review of decision of Immigration Assessment Authority – whether Authority misconstrued evidence provided by applicant – whether Authority acted unreasonably in failing to seek new information under s 473DC of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) – no jurisdictional error – application dismissed. Legislation: Migration Act 1958 (Cth), ss 5AAA, 5AA, 57, 65, 473BB, 473CA, 473DC, 473DD, 476, 477 Cases cited: ABT17 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2020) 269 CLR 439; [2020] HCA 34
BMT19 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2022] FCA 328
CPV17 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2021] FCA 1502
DGZ16 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2018) 258 FCR 551; [2018] FCAFC 12
FBR18 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2019] FCA 1620
Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v CRY16 (2017) 253 FCR 475; [2017] FCAFC 210
Plaintiff M174 /2016 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2018) 264 CLR 217; [2018] HCA 16
Division: Division 2 General Federal Law Number of paragraphs: 44 Date of hearing: 25 July 2022 Place: Perth Counsel for the Applicant: Ms G Costello KC Solicitor for the Applicant: Asylum Seeker Resource Centre Counsel for the Respondents: Mr J Barrington Solicitor for the Respondents: Mills Oakley Lawyers ORDERS
MLG 1564 of 2017 FEDERAL CIRCUIT AND FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA (DIVISION 2)
BETWEEN: DGT17
Applicant
AND: MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS
First Respondent
IMMIGRATION ASSESSMENT AUTHORITY
Second Respondent
order made by:
JUDGE LADHAMS
DATE OF ORDER:
29 November 2022
THE COURT ORDERS THAT:
1.The application is dismissed.
Note: The form of the order is subject to the entry in the Court’s records.
Note: The Court may vary or set aside a judgment or order to remedy minor typographical or grammatical errors (r 17.05(2)(g) Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2) (General Federal Law) Rules 2021 (Cth)), or to record a variation to the order pursuant to r 17.05 Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2) (General Federal Law) Rules 2021 (Cth).
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
JUDGE LADHAMS:
INTRODUCTION
The applicant is a citizen of Iran. He entered Australia by boat at Christmas Island in October 2012 and is an unauthorised maritime arrival within the meaning of s 5AA of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) (Migration Act). The applicant applied for a temporary protection visa on 29 June 2016 and a delegate of the Minister made a decision not to grant the applicant a protection visa on 2 March 2017. The delegate’s decision was a ‘fast track reviewable decision’ within the meaning of s 473BB of the Migration Act and the matter was referred to the Immigration Assessment Authority (Authority) in accordance with s 473CA of the Migration Act. The Authority affirmed the delegate’s decision on 15 June 2017.
The applicant seeks judicial review of the Authority decision. The application to this Court is brought pursuant to s 476 of the Migration Act.
The applicant relies on an amended application filed on 25 January 2022 containing two grounds. The applicant alleges that:
(a)the Authority misconstrued evidence provided by the applicant; and
(b)the Authority acted unreasonably in failing to seek new information under s 473DC of the Migration Act.
Due to the limited nature of the issues before the Court, I set out in this judgment the background and decisions of the delegate and Authority only in so far as they are directly relevant to the grounds of application.
Relevant claims for protection and decisions of the delegate and authority
Amongst other things, the applicant claimed to fear harm in Iran from the Sepah because of his father’s political opinion. The applicant claimed that:
(a)his father was a taxi driver who was arrested, detained and interrogated by the Sepah because of comments he made about the Iranian government to two passengers;
(b)his father was taken to the Revolutionary Court and released upon signing an undertaking not to participate in anti-government activities;
(c)his father’s taxi registration was cancelled and taxi was sold by the Sepah; and
(d)the Sepah had searched the applicant’s family home on two occasions because of his father.
On 2 March 2017 a delegate of the Minister made a decision not to grant the applicant a protection visa. The delegate did not accept the applicant’s claims regarding his father’s issues with the authorities to be credible. The delegate’s main concerns with the evidence can be summarised as follows:
(a)The delegate considered that evidence from the applicant and four of his family members was generally consistent in relation to the father’s outburst in the taxi, his detention for five days by the Sepah and the declaration made at the Revolutionary Court. However, there was no evidence presented by the applicant or his family that the father was a taxi driver, that his father was taken to the Revolutionary Court or that his father signed a declaration. Another brother of the applicant said to the Department in 2011 that his father was retired and that he previously worked with a particular employer in an office based job.
(b)The delegate could not find any country information to support the applicant’s claims that his father would have been detained and then informally presented at the Revolutionary Court. The delegate also could not find any information to support the applicant’s claim that his father’s taxi was confiscated and sold with the proceeds given to the father. The applicant had claimed that his father committed an act of political dissent in front of the Sepah, and country information suggested that this sort of crime would ordinarily be subject to a penalty in the range of two months’ imprisonment to execution.
The matter was then referred to the Authority. The applicant provided a submission to the Authority and two documents, with translations, relating to his father. The Authority described these documents as:
(a)an ‘Insurance Payment Receipt Card’ issued in 2010 by a taxi company (Insurance Receipt); and
(b)an ‘Insurance History’ from a social security organisation dated March 2017 (Insurance History), which indicated that the applicant’s father ‘worked for the [taxi company] … until … August 2012’.
The Authority, in finding that the requirements of s 473DD were met in relation to these documents, considered that it was ‘clear from the nature and the contents of these documents that they purportedly establish that [the applicant’s] father was a taxi driver’. The Authority took into account at [5] the following information about the opportunity that the applicant had to present the information to the delegate:
In his decision, the delegate stated that no one in the applicant’s family had provided any evidence that his father was a taxi driver and referred to inconsistent evidence that his brother … had provided to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (the Department) which indicated that his father used to work in an office in a department and, in addition to other considerations, ultimately rejected the applicant’s entire claim that the applicant’s father was arrested by the Sepah and taken to the Revolutionary Court for comments he made against the Iranian regime whilst driving his taxi. In the protection visa interview, although the delegate told the applicant that his father’s alleged political issues may not have an impact on him and his ability to live safely in Iran, he did not raise any concerns to the applicant that he had doubts that his father was a taxi driver or that his brother’s evidence had been inconsistent in that regard or that he doubted the entirety of his claim in regards to his father’s arrest. For these reasons I am satisfied that the applicant has provided the above documents in direct response to the delegate’s decision. Although these documents were likely available to the applicant prior to the delegate’s decision, I have given consideration to the fact that the applicant was not aware of, and did not have an opportunity to respond to, the delegate’s concern about whether or not the applicant’s father was in fact a taxi driver or the entirety of the applicant’s claim in relation to his father’s arrest before the delegate made his decision.
In the course of considering the applicant’s claims in relation to his father’s issues with the authorities, the Authority said at [11] (footnotes omitted):
In his decision, the delegate referred to the fact that the applicant’s parents and his sister and brother … also provided a generally consistent account of their father’s outburst in the taxi, his detention and declaration. I accept that the applicant’s father was a taxi driver however, notwithstanding the corroboration of the applicant’s family members, I have concerns about credibility of the applicant’s claim in regards to his father’s arrest. Although the applicant claims that his father was taken to the Revolutionary Court there is no evidence that he was actually charged with a crime and convicted. Country information indicates that the Revolutionary Courts rule on serious offences related to the country’s national security, drug trafficking and moral and religious offences and I have concerns as to whether such a matter would be referred to the Revolutionary Court. I am also not satisfied that, as a result of the comments he made in his taxi, that the Sepah would find it necessary to search his house on two occasions particularly as, prior to the second search of his house, his father had already been released and was not imprisoned or subject to any further serious penalty for his alleged comments. The applicant also claimed that this incident occurred in the first month of the Persian calendar in 1391 (2012) and part of the undertaking his father had to abide by was that his father could not drive a taxi anymore. Country information that was before the delegate indicates that the Iranian year begins on 21 March. However the applicant has provided a document indicating that his father had been employed with the [taxi company] up and until … August 2012 which is just prior to their departure from Iran in September 2012. This appears inconsistent with his claim that his father was arrested months earlier and part of his punishment was that he could no longer drive a taxi and his taxi registration was cancelled and applicant has not provided any explanation for this inconsistency. As a result of my concerns as outlined above I do not accept the applicant’s claim that his father was arrested for making anti-government remarks whilst driving his taxi and taken to the Revolutionary Court and released on the undertaking to not attend any gatherings of more than three people, to not drive his taxi anymore and not participate in any acts against the government. I do not accept that the applicant faces a real chance of harm on return to Iran for these reasons.
After assessing all of the applicant’s claims, the Authority was not satisfied that the applicant met the criteria for a protection visa in ss 36(2)(a) or 36(2)(aa) of the Migration Act and affirmed the delegate’s decision.
PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THIS COURT
The applicant commenced proceedings in this Court by way of an application filed on 20 July 2017. This is within 35 days of the Authority decision as required by s 477(1) of the Migration Act. The applicant filed an amended application on 25 January 2022.
The amended application raises the following two grounds:
1.The IAA’s decision is unintelligible, unreasonable or erroneous based on the IAA’s misconstruing of documents at CB 131 – 132 about taxi insurance.
2.The IAA acted unreasonably by not asking the applicant to provide new information or submissions about the timing of his father’s taxi driving occupation, in circumstances where the delegate had rejected the claim that he was a taxi driver at all, rather than the claim about when he was a taxi driver.
Ground 1
Applicant’s submissions
The applicant’s first ground is premised on his belief that the Authority misunderstood the Insurance Receipt and the Insurance History documents that he submitted. The applicant submitted that:
(a)The Authority’s statement that the Insurance History document ‘indicates that [the applicant’s father] worked for the [taxi company] … until … August 2012’ is nonsensical because the Insurance History document shows when the applicant’s father was insured rather than when he was employed. The record stated that the applicant’s father had taxi insurance until August 2012, which could be consistent with someone operating as a taxi driver until March 2012. The Insurance History shows that when his father had no employer, he had elective insurance from July 2012, which is consistent with the applicant’s father having finished taxi driving before then and then electing to make voluntary insurance payments while unemployed.
(b)The Insurance Receipt document shows that the last insurance payment was made in March 2011, which is consistent with the applicant’s father not paying insurance when he was no longer able to drive a taxi in March 2012.
The applicant submitted that the Authority’s decision can be characterised as unreasonable because it was illogical or irrational for the Authority to reason that the record of his father’s insurance meant that his employment ended at a time inconsistent with the applicant’s claims. The applicant further submitted that the Authority’s reliance on selective aspects of the Insurance History was unreasonable.
Counsel for the applicant submitted at the hearing that it is very difficult to extrapolate dates from the Persian calendar to the Western calendar. Counsel for the applicant also submitted at the hearing that a person’s insurance for driving a taxi is unlikely to cease immediately upon the person being told to stop driving a taxi. The evidence was put forward because it supported the applicant’s claim that his father drove a taxi, and it should have been accepted as corroborative evidence.
At the hearing, I questioned Counsel for the applicant about the basis for the proposition that the insurance records related to insurance for driving a taxi, and questioned whether the reference to ‘Social Security Organisation’ and other types of employment unrelated to driving a taxi on the Insurance History document might indicate that the insurance is for a different employment related purpose, such as income protection insurance. Counsel for the applicant acknowledged that this might be the case, and submitted that the possibility of different interpretations reinforced the unreasonableness of the Authority failing to invite the applicant to comment, which is the subject of ground 2. Counsel for the applicant further submitted that, even if the insurance system in Iran is, for example, similar to the 401(k) system used in the United States, there is no way of knowing whether it is common for payments to be made for a few months after someone has ceased their employment. Counsel for the applicant submitted that the Authority made leaps and guesses about what the documents indicated, and submitted that it was not reasonably open for the Authority to find that this undermined the applicant’s claim that his father ceased being a taxi driver in or around April 2012.
Minister’s submissions
The Minister accepted that the Insurance History document was not a record of employment per se and was only a record of how long the applicant held insurance. However, the Minister submitted that the Authority correctly referred to the document as an Insurance History and did not confuse it with a record of employment.
The Minister submitted that it was not illogical or irrational for the Authority to interpret the Insurance History and the Insurance Receipt documents as indicating that the applicant’s father ceased work as a taxi driver in August 2012, especially in circumstances where the applicant gave no explanation for the documents he provided.
The Minister’s submissions focused on the words used by the Authority to describe the effect of these documents. In particular, the Minister noted the Authority’s findings to the effect that the Insurance History indicated that the applicant’s father worked for the taxi company until August 2012, and that this appeared to be inconsistent with the applicant’s claim that his father was arrested months earlier. The Minister submitted that the Authority’s words showed it did not consider the Insurance History as categorical proof of employment as a taxi driver until August 2012, and rather that it only considered the document suggested that the applicant’s father was a taxi driver up to that date. The Minister submitted that such an inference or conclusion was not illogical or unreasonable, because it is rational to consider that the period during which a person maintains insurance would coincide with the purpose of that insurance existing.
The Minister submitted that the rationality of the Authority’s conclusion was not undermined by the Insurance Receipt document. The insurance expiry date is listed in that document as a date in August 2011 and therefore it could not be that the most recent recorded payment in March 2011 somehow paid insurance until August 2012. The applicant’s father must have continued to renew his insurance after the last payment recorded.
Counsel for the Minister submitted at the hearing that for the inferences drawn by the Authority from the Insurance History and the Insurance Receipt to be reasonable, it is enough that they were available on the evidence and within the area of decisional freedom, even if other inferences more favourable to the applicant were also open.
Resolution
I accept that the Insurance History and Insurance Receipt documents show periods of insurance, whatever the nature of that insurance, rather than precise periods of employment. However, notwithstanding that, I consider that the inferences that the Authority drew from those documents were reasonably open to it.
I do not accept that the Authority misconstrued the Insurance History and the Insurance Receipt. There is nothing in the Authority decision that would suggest that the Authority interpreted either of the insurance documents as concrete evidence of precise dates of employment. Rather, the Authority has treated the insurance record as indicative of the period of employment, and suggested that it appears to be inconsistent with the applicant’s evidence as to when his father ceased driving a taxi.
I accept the Minister’s submission that the Authority used the word ‘indicate’ in this context to mean ‘to point to or towards the presence, existence, or reality of’ and the word ‘appear’ to mean ‘seem’.[1] It is clear from the context in which the insurance documents are referred to at [11] of the Authority’s reasons, that the Authority is identifying what appears to be an inconsistency which has not been explained by the applicant. That inconsistency appears from, on the one hand, the applicant’s narrative that his father made comments to passengers while driving a taxi in or around March or April 2012 which led to him having to cease driving a taxi at that time and, on the other hand, the insurance records which the Authority considered indicate that the applicant’s father had continued to be employed by the taxi company until August 2012. The Authority did not make any definitive or unqualified finding that the applicant’s father continued to drive a taxi until August 2012: see BMT19 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2022] FCA 328 at [82] as another example of a matter when, read fairly, the decision-maker’s use of the word ‘indicate’ did not express a conclusive and unqualified finding.
[1] The Minister cited the Oxford English Dictionary (Online) for these definitions.
Further, there is nothing illogical, irrational or unreasonable about the Authority making an inference that the finish date recorded on the Insurance History from the social security organisation in respect of the taxi company ‘indicates’ that the applicant’s father continued to work for the company until around that date, particularly in circumstances where the applicant offered no explanation of the documents in the submission to the Authority that accompanied the documents. While other possible inferences might be open, including those identified by Counsel for the applicant, the inference drawn by the Authority was within the area of decisional freedom of the Authority.
Ground 1 is not established.
Ground 2
Applicant’s submissions
The applicant submitted that it was unreasonable for the Authority to dismiss his claim based on his father’s arrest without taking steps to obtain further comment or information from him about the relevant timing of his father’s employment. This was said to be particularly so in circumstances where the delegate rejected the claims advanced by the applicant about his father’s political issues by relying on evidence given by the applicant’s brother in a separate application, without complying with the procedures in s 57 of the Migration Act.
The applicant submitted that the Authority decided the matter on a different basis to the delegate, by finding that his father was not a taxi driver at the relevant time, rather than that he had not been a taxi driver at all. The applicant submitted it was unreasonable for the Authority to make the dispositive finding about the timing issue when the applicant had not had a chance to be heard on that issue before the delegate or the Authority. It was also said to be unreasonable for the Authority to make dispositive findings based on discrepancies in dates as transposing dates from the Persian calendar to the Western calendar is difficult.
The applicant submitted that the Authority had the capacity to ‘fashion its procedure’ to cure the error in the process adopted by the delegate. The delegate’s decision put the applicant on notice that the fact of whether his father was a taxi driver was an issue, but before the Authority, the issue shifted to when the father was a taxi driver without notice to the applicant. The applicant submitted that, in these circumstances, the Authority’s failure to exercise its discretion in s 473DC of the Migration Act to obtain new information from the applicant or to invite further submissions, or otherwise find a solution to put the applicant on notice of the dispositive issue, was unreasonable.
Minister’s submissions
The Minister submitted that the Authority did not act unreasonably in failing to exercise its discretion in s 473DC of the Migration Act to get new information for the following reasons:
(a)The issue decided by the Authority was not a fundamentally different issue to that decided by the delegate. The delegate rejected the applicant’s claim to fear harm as a result of his father’s activities as a taxi driver on the basis of a lack of country information to suggest that the father would have been brought before the Revolutionary Court, and the lack of evidence that the father was a taxi driver, was taken to the Revolutionary Court or signed a declaration. The Authority did not reject the claim on precisely the same basis as the delegate and, part of its reasoning for rejecting the claim included the information in the Insurance History and the Insurance Receipt documents. However, the Authority was not relevantly disabled from considering the issue before it. Instead, the Authority had before it information that allowed it to reach the conclusion that the applicant did not face a real chance of persecution that amounted to serious harm. Relying on DGZ16 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2018) 258 FCR 551; [2018] FCAFC 12 (DGZ16) at [74], the Minister submitted that the Authority was not required as a matter of legal reasonableness or otherwise, to seek further submissions from the applicant once it formed any specific reservations about his case.
(b)The Insurance History and Insurance Receipt documents were provided by the applicant and it was his responsibility under s 5AAA(2) of the Migration Act to specify all particulars of his claims and to provide sufficient information to establish the claims. The applicant was not prevented from making submissions about the insurance documents or the way in which they should have been construed. It was not the Authority’s duty to assist the applicant to supply even more information and to give him an opportunity to make a fuller and better case by telling him that what had been provided was inadequate and asking for more information.
(c)Any difficulty in the transposition of dates from the Persian calendar to the Western calendar did not require the Authority to get new information because the Authority had before it country information that resolved that point.
(d)The applicant’s focus on a possible breach by the delegate of s 57 of the Migration Act does not assist him, because it is not clear that the information was not put to the applicant or that the information was of such significance as necessarily to have led the delegate to consider that the information ‘would’, as distinct from ‘might’, be the reason or part of the reason for refusing to grant the protection visa. In any event, the Authority did not refer to the family members’ evidence at all in its reasons and therefore it should be inferred that the Authority did not consider the evidence on this point to be material.
Resolution
The principles relevant to the resolution of ground 2 are not in dispute. The Authority had a discretion, conferred by s 473DC of the Migration Act, to get new information that was not before the delegate and that it considered to be relevant to the review, and it was required to act reasonably in the exercise or non-exercise of this discretion. An unreasonable failure to exercise, or to consider exercising, the discretion in s 473DC can amount to jurisdictional error: ABT17 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2020) 269 CLR 439; [2020] HCA 34 (ABT17); Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v CRY16 (2017) 253 FCR 475; [2017] FCAFC 210 (CRY16). A summary of the relevant principles and an overview of the key cases in this regard was set out by O’Bryan J in CPV17 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2021] FCA 1502 at [46], a case to which Counsel for the applicant referred at the hearing.
The Authority is able to ‘fashion its procedure’, including by exercising the discretion in s 473DC, to remedy any defect in the process that the delegate adopted in making the decision under s 65 of the Migration Act: ABT17 at [20]; Plaintiff M174/2016 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2018) 264 CLR 217; [2018] HCA 16 at [49].
There were numerous references in the submissions advanced by the applicant to defects in the process adopted by the delegate, and specifically, a failure to comply with s 57 of the Migration Act because the delegate did not invite the applicant to comment on the information provided to the Department by one of his brothers. The Minister submitted that this issue was something of a ‘red herring’ because the Authority did not rely on information provided by the applicant’s family members, and so it was not unreasonable for the Authority not to get new information to remedy any breach of s 57 in respect of that information.
In resolving this ground it is not necessary for me to determine whether the delegate breached s 57 of the Migration Act. In my view, at best, any issues regarding the delegate’s failure to invite the applicant to comment on his brother’s evidence may provide context to the unreasonableness asserted by the applicant, but the unreasonableness pleaded is not directed to remedying a breach of s 57. The reasons for this view can be explained by looking at the following aspects of the history of the matter:
(a)The delegate referred to information from the protection visa applications made by family members of the applicant. This included information from the applicant’s brother, who said that his father was retired and that he used to work in a particular department and worked in an office. The delegate also noted that none of the applicant’s family members had provided evidence that he worked as a taxi driver. The delegate described the lack of evidence to substantiate the claims about the father’s issues with the authorities to be ‘significant’.
(b)The applicant then provided the Insurance History and the Insurance Receipt documents to the Authority.
(c)The Authority considered that the documents were provided ‘in direct response’ to the delegate’s decision, and had regard to the fact that the applicant was not aware of the delegate’s concern about whether his father was a taxi driver.
(d)The Authority accepted that the applicant’s father had worked as a taxi driver. It did not rely on any contrary information from the applicant’s brother to express any doubt as to whether the father worked as a taxi driver.
The ground as pleaded is not an assertion that the Authority acted unreasonably by failing to take any further steps to remedy any failure by the delegate to advise the applicant of the inconsistent evidence given by his brother. This is not surprising, as the Insurance History and the Insurance Receipt had effectively addressed the delegate’s concerns arising from the applicant’s brother’s evidence and the lack of corroborative evidence provided by any of the family members to show that the father was a taxi driver.
Rather, the applicant asserts that a ‘new issue’ arose based on when the applicant’s father ceased working as a taxi driver, and the Authority acted unreasonably in not inviting the applicant to comment on this new issue. Therefore, the issue for the Court to determine, based on the ground as pleaded by the applicant, is whether the Authority acted unreasonably in not exercising its discretion in s 473DC of the Migration Act to get further information from the applicant about when his father was employed as a taxi driver.
In the present case, I do not accept that the issue before the Authority was materially different to the issue before the delegate. To the extent that the Authority’s reasoning process included a finding of fact that was not made by the delegate, it was not unreasonable for the Authority not to invite the applicant to provide further information about when his father worked as a taxi driver.
The relevant issue before both the delegate and the Authority was whether the applicant would face a real chance of serious harm or a real risk of significant harm in Iran as a result of his father, while driving a taxi, making anti-government comments to two passengers who turned out to be from the Sepah. As discussed above, the delegate found against the applicant due to the claims being inconsistent with country information, and because of concerns about the lack of supporting evidence to support the claims, including but not limited to the lack of evidence to support the assertion that the father was a taxi driver, coupled with the applicant’s brother’s contrary evidence. The Authority shared some of the delegate’s concerns, albeit differently expressed, including that the applicant’s claims were inconsistent with country information and that there was a lack of supporting evidence to show that the applicant’s father was taken to the Revolutionary Court. The Authority, with the benefit of the new information provided by the applicant, no longer shared the delegate’s concern about the lack of evidence to show that the applicant’s father ever worked as a taxi driver. The Authority also provided reasons for its findings not mentioned by the delegate, such as its lack of satisfaction that the applicant’s family’s house would be searched twice as a result of the comments, as well as because of the inconsistencies about the timing of the applicant’s father’s arrest and employment, which are the subject of this ground of application. While there are notable differences in the reasoning of the delegate and the Authority, there is also an overlap in the reasoning sufficient to show that it was addressing broadly the same issue.
The Authority’s concern about the timing of when the applicant’s father ceased working as a taxi driver arose from the apparent inconsistency that it identified in the new information that the applicant provided to the Authority in direct response to the delegate’s decision and his earlier evidence given to the delegate. As can be seen, it was one of several reasons articulated by the Authority for rejecting the applicant’s claim to face harm on account of the comments his father made in a taxi.
I accept the Minister’s submission that the Authority was not required to ‘assist the applicant to make a fuller or better case by telling him that what had been provided was inadequate and asking for more information’: FBR18 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2019] FCA 1620 at [45]. The Authority was not required to put the applicant on notice of any doubts about the applicant’s evidence provided to it or inconsistencies in the applicant’s evidence: DGZ16 at [72].
This is not a case such as CRY16 where the Authority was disabled from conducting its review because it did not have all necessary information. The Authority had the necessary information before it, including the Insurance Receipt and Insurance History documents and country information to assist with any transposing or extrapolation of dates from the Persian to the Western calendar. There is nothing in the Authority reasons to suggest that it had any difficulties understanding the new information provided by the applicant and that it required any clarification from the applicant.
There is nothing in the particular circumstances of this case that made it unreasonable for the Authority not to invite the applicant to comment on the inconsistencies it identified in his evidence in relation to the timing of when his father ceased driving a taxi.
Ground 2 is not established.
Conclusion
The applicant has not established that the Authority decision is affected by jurisdictional error and the application for judicial review is therefore dismissed.
I certify that the preceding forty-four (44) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment of Judge Ladhams. Associate:
Dated: 29 November 2022
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