DIN20 v Minister for Home Affairs

[2020] FCCA 2117

FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF AUSTRALIA

DIN20 v MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS & ANOR [2020] FCCA 2117

Catchwords:
MIGRATION – Protection Visa – whether Immigration Assessment authority’s decision affected by jurisdictional error – where no error established in Immigration Assessment authority’s decision – application dismissed

Legislation:

Migration Act 1958 (Cth), s.5J

Applicant: DIN20

First Respondent: MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS

Second Respondent: IMMIGRATION ASSESSMENT AUTHORITY

File Number: BRG 396 of 2020

Judgment of: Judge Vasta

Hearing date: 20 July 2020

Date of Last Submission: 20 July 2020

Delivered at: Brisbane

Delivered on: 20 July 2020

REPRESENTATION

Counsel for the Applicant: Mr A. Psaltis

Solicitors for the Applicant: Refugee And Immigration Legal Service Inc

Counsel for the First Respondent: Ms Milutinovic

Solicitors for the First Respondent: Sparke Helmore

ORDERS

1. That the Applications filed 25 February 2019 and amended on 5 June 2020, and on 20 July 2020 are dismissed.

2. That the Applicant pay the costs of the First Respondent fixed in the sum $6,000.

IT IS NOTED:

A. That the Court will not provide a written version of the reasons for judgment delivered today, unless an appeal has been lodged or the Court has received a request in writing from either party seeking that written reasons be produced.

FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT
OF AUSTRALIA
AT BRISBANE

BRG 396 of 2020

DIN20

Applicant

And

MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS

First Respondent

IMMIGRATION ASSESSMENT AUTHORITY

Second Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

(Ex tempore)

1. On 1 February 2019, the Immigration Assessment Authority (“the IAA”) affirmed a decision of the delegate not to grant the Applicant, DIN20, a protection visa.  On 25 February 2019, the Applicant asked this Court to review that decision. 

2. The background to the matter is that the Applicant is a citizen of Sri Lanka.  He was born in 1980 in the northern provinces of Sri Lanka.  He is a Tamil who has religious ties.  He claimed that his father was killed by a paramilitary group by a poisonous injection and that his uncle was murdered by the Criminal Investigation Department, (“the CID”), and this happened when he was very young. 

3. He said that, in 2002, he began working for an LTTE-managed forest conservation organisation.  He said that there was a team of about 10 people that were caring for the forest areas and stopping illegal logging.  He said that his group handed over paramilitary group members who were stealing wood.  They handed them over to the LTTE and the LTTE then fined these people who were stealing the wood. 

4. The Applicant said in 2004 he stopped this work and he went back to his mother’s house and a week later the paramilitary group came to question him because they were upset because they had been fined. He said that these paramilitary groups worked with the Sri Lankan Army and that the Sri Lankan Army told him, the Applicant, to go to the army camp for questioning.  He said that he had to report there every week and he was assaulted during interrogation. 

5. He said that after about four months in 2005, he decided to flee the army and the paramilitary group and go to his uncle’s place and, there, he again worked for the forestry conservation organisation.  In September 2006, he said he returned to his mother’s area and he registered his marriage and he lived at his wife’s house. 

6. He said at the end of January 2007, he was caught in a round-up by the CID and the SLA.  He said that CID officers and a masked assessor identified 10 men, including him, as LTTE members.  He said after being held for about two hours, he was paired off and given a bicycle to obtain his national ID card from the CID office, but on the way there he was forced into a white van and taken to an SLA camp.  At that camp, he was blindfolded, he was chained, he was mistreated and he was questioned about his sports club coach, a person called T. 

7. He said that they told him that they knew that T was an LTTE member.  He, the Applicant, told the officers that T was not LTTE.  He said the next morning he was released and a priest and the person, T, picked him up and told him that they had reported his detention to the police and contacted various authorities to have him released. 

8. After two nights, his cousin informed him that the SLA was asking the police about him, that is, the Applicant, and he, the cousin, told the Applicant that it was not safe in Sri Lanka for him. 

9. The Applicant said that he left for India on a boat with his wife, his mother and sister-in-law on 31 January 2007.  He said, in India, he and the rest of his family group were registered as refugees at the Mandapam Camp. 

10. Q Branch authorities accused him of being an LTTE member after he had told the Q Branch authorities that he worked for an LTTE organisation and that he had to go to the police every month for questioning.  He said that he feared that he would be killed by the CID, the SLA or paramilitary groups if he returned to Sri Lanka. 

11. He said that the SLA camp near his house continued to operate today and he fears that he will be abducted by the paramilitary groups.  He said that the Sri Lankan authorities hold records about him and the paramilitary groups are resentful because he was part of the forest conservation groups that made them pay large fines. 

12. He said when he was in India, the paramilitary groups went to his mother’s house looking for him. 

13. After he was interviewed, his representative made submissions to the delegate.  Those submissions contain some additional claims. 

14. Those additional claims were that he fears harm because of his Tamil ethnicity and his imputed political opinion as being an employee of a conservation group under LTTE management;  that the SLA is stationed on his family land which would put him at risk of interaction or interrogations with the authorities leading to his detention and torture;  that his past breaches of the Immigrants and Emigrants Act in illegally departing Sri Lanka put him in jeopardy;  that his family continues to live in India due to a fear of returning to Sri Lanka which could be viewed as suspicious by the authorities especially if he is returned to Sri Lanka;  that if he tried to reunite with his family in India, because he is known to the Q Branch of the Tamil Nadu Police, there was a heightened risk of him being deported to Sri Lanka or being detained in a special refugee camp;  and, that his profile as a Tamil failed asylum seeker returning to Sri Lanka illegally without required documentation also puts him at risk.

15. The IAA looked through all of these claims.  They first looked at the claim that the Applicant was involved with a forest conservation organisation managed by the LTTE.  The IAA came to the conclusion that the Applicant’s evidence of his involvement was not very convincing.  The IAA went through a lot of the deficiencies in the Applicant’s evidence as to what it was that this group did, how it was that he was involved with it, and also looked at the failure of the Applicant to mention this when he was first interviewed and made his application. 

16. In the end, the IAA did not accept that the Applicant worked for any forest conservation organisation or environmental group.  The IAA did not accept that the Applicant came to the attention to the SLA when he returned home in 2004 because of any claimed involvement with this organisation.  The IAA did not accept that the Applicant was harassed by paramilitary groups or questioned by the Sri Lankan Army in and around 2004.  The IAA did not accept that the Applicant was required to report almost every week and that he was assaulted during interrogations as he claimed. 

17. The IAA did not accept that the Applicant’s mother was frequently visited by the paramilitary groups following his departure from Sri Lanka.  The IAA said that they were not satisfied that the Applicant would be imputed with an anti-government or pro-LTTE political opinion on the basis that he claimed to have worked for a conservation organisation. 

18. The IAA then looked at the round-up and detention in January 2007.  The Applicant had claimed that he was rounded up because of his work with the forest conservation group and that a masked man identified him as LTTE. 

19. The IAA noted that the Applicant had been fairly consistent about the fact that he had been rounded up and he responded more confidently to questions about this claim.  Therefore, the IAA was satisfied that he had actually been rounded up but not because of the forest affiliation or because of any masked man had identified him as LTTE.  The IAA said that the suspicion of the authorities, regarding the Applicant, stemmed only from the fact that the Applicant was of Tamil ethnicity. 

20. The IAA looked at the country information which said that the sort of activity that the Applicant described had been noted; that is, that persons had been arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and whilst those arrests under that Act were done, there were other arbitrary and unlawful arrests that were carried out. 

21. The country information was to the effect that the victims were arrested near their homes or workplaces.  The victims would be bundled into unmarked vehicles, most commonly white vans. The victims would be blindfolded and tied up and driven to a place of detention.  Arbitrary arrests were generally perpetrated against predetermined individuals often after a period of surveillance and were, thus, pre-planned.  Soldiers were accompanied by hooded or masked men.  The length of detention varied from days to months to several years. 

22. The DFAT information was that authorities detained more Tamils under the Prevention of Terrorism Act than any other ethnic group and many Tamils, particular in the north and east, reported being monitored, harassed, arrested or detained by security forces during the conflict.  The information suggested that the emergency regulations were applied in a discriminatory manner. 

23. The IAA accepted that the Applicant had been rounded up and that he may have been physically mistreated during this period of detention.  The IAA noted that the Applicant claimed that he was detained for one night and he was questioned mainly about T, his coach from the sports club and that “they” knew T belonged to the LTTE which he, the Applicant, denied.  The IAA noted that the Applicant said that the next morning he was released and that this was due to a priest and T who had reported the kidnapping to the police and contacted various authorities for his release. 

24. The IAA did not consider that this incident meant that the Applicant was marked as being an LTTE affiliate or sympathiser or that he had links to the LTTE.  The IAA said this:

    …Whilst I accept the applicant was detained overnight and for almost one day and questioned mainly about T who at the time was not himself in detention, given the applicant was released so soon after his arrest, I am not satisfied the SLA or the CID considered the applicant to be an LTTE member or associate or to have any links of significance with the LTTE. 

25. The IAA then looked at what happened after departure.  The IAA said that the Applicant claimed that the Q Branch authorities spoke to him in Tamil Nadu and they accused him of being an LTTE member after he told them that he worked for an LTTE organisation and that he had to go to the police every month for questioning.  The Applicant provided a copy of his refugee identity card from the Mandapam Camp that was issued by the government of Tamil Nadu. 

26. The country information was that, with nearly 100,000 Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu, the refugees were divided up into:

    a)people who were living in the camp (Mandapam), or

    b)non-camp refugees who had personal resources and accommodation to stay in, or

    c)special camp refugees who had been part of one of the militant outfits. 

    The country information was that the largest number of refugees was concentrated at the Mandapam Camp and that refugees, upon arrival, are interviewed by Q Branch and their papers are thoroughly examined to ascertain which camp they should go to.  Those with those connections to the LTTE would be sent to one of the special camps. 

27. The IAA accepted that the Applicant was interviewed by Q Branch and he is, therefore, known to Q Branch of the Tamil Nadu Police.  The IAA said that given they had not accepted that the Applicant worked with the forest conservation organisation or that he had any LTTE association.  Given that he continued to reside in Mandapam Camp and not in a special camp, the IAA was not satisfied that the Applicant was viewed with any suspicion by the Indian authorities or that he was considered an LTTE member or affiliate. 

28. The IAA was not satisfied that the Applicant did have a heightened risk of being deported to Sri Lanka or being detained in a special refugee camp if he did go back to India or attempt to reunite with his family in India. 

29. The IAA then looked at the Applicant’s claim that, being a Tamil from the Northern Province, this would result in him having a real or imputed political association with the LTTE. The IAA ended up saying that they were not satisfied that the Applicant had a profile of someone associated with a politically sensitive issue to warrant adverse attention from the Sri Lankan authorities. Whilst the country information indicates that some Tamils may face harassment, including monitoring, the IAA was not satisfied that this would amount to serious harm. 

30. The IAA then looked at country information that spoke of the current situation of Tamils in Sri Lanka.  The IAA looked at the Applicant’s claims as to his father and his uncle being killed because of LTTE connections but the IAA was not satisfied as to the credibility of the claims of the Applicant or that they would impute the Applicant with a perceived LTTE connection. 

31. The IAA then looked at the Applicant being a returned Tamil failed asylum seeker who departed Sri Lanka illegally.  The IAA looked at the Immigrants and Emigrants Act and looked at what was happening to persons who, having left the country illegally, came back. 

32. The IAA noted that the usual course is for people to be fined and that some may be on bail, and be on bail for some time, but there was no verification that a mere passenger on a boat that had left Sri Lanka was given a custodial sentence.  The IAA accepted that some asylum seekers, with significant actual or perceived links to the LTTE, may still be at risk of harm when processed at the airport, but, because the IAA did not accept that the Applicant was one of those persons, he would not face harm on this particular aspect. 

33. Having looked at all of the Applicant’s circumstances and profile as a whole, the IAA was not satisfied that the Applicant faced real chance of persecution now or in the reasonably foreseeable future. The Applicant did not have a well-founded fear of persecution within the meaning of s.5J of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) according to the IAA.

34. The IAA then looked at the complementary protection criteria and looked at what would occur to the Applicant upon return to Sri Lanka.  At paragraph 53, the IAA said:

    53. I am also not satisfied the treatment (including social stigma, visits or telephone calls from the authorities) and penalties to which the Applicant may be subject means there is a real risk the applicant will be subject to the death penalty or will be arbitrarily deprived of his life or will face torture.  Nor am I satisfied that there is any intention to inflict severe pain or suffering, or to cause extreme humiliation.  I am not satisfied the applicant faces a real risk of cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment or degrading treatment or punishment.

35. The IAA then found that the Applicant did not meet the complementary protection criteria. Having made those two conclusions, the IAA affirmed the decision not to give the Applicant a protection visa. 

36. The grounds of this application were amended on 5 June 2020.  I will deal with them seriatim. Ground one is:

    1. The Immigration Assessment Authority’s (the Authority) decision was based on findings and inferences which were not supported by logical grounds and thus is affected by jurisdictional error.

    …

37. This ground revolves around the IAA’s handling of the aspect involving the round-up and detention.  In particular, the sentence from paragraph 19, that I have earlier read, which ended up with the IAA not being satisfied that the SLA or CID considered the Applicant to be an LTTE member or associate or to have any links of significance with the LTTE, was a conclusion that was submitted to be simply not open on the evidence. 

38. The argument advanced by the Applicant is this:  having regard to the findings that the IAA had already made, it meant that the finding of the IAA was that the Applicant, solely because of the reason that he was a Tamil, was rounded up in January 2007, was physically mistreated and was asked questions about his involvement with the LTTE and that of the person, T. 

39. In circumstances such as this, the IAA came to that conclusion that they were not satisfied that this meant that the Applicant had membership, associate status or any links of significance with the LTTE.  However, it is what the IAA said as to coming to that conclusion that the Applicant takes issue with and that is this part of the sentence:

    Whilst I accept the Applicant was detained overnight and for almost one day and questioned mainly about T, given the Applicant was released so soon after his arrest, I am not satisfied. [Identifying information omitted]

40. The Applicant submits that, when it comes to this particular aspect, the IAA have, in effect, nailed their colours to the mast; that the only reason that they came to the conclusion of non-satisfaction is that the Applicant was released so soon after his arrest.  The Applicant concedes that there may be some aspect about the fact that the IAA has also said that the Applicant was questioned mainly about T who, at the time, was not himself in detention.  The Applicant says that those two reasons cannot lead to, or be the basis of, being not satisfied of the links to the LTTE. 

41. The Applicant relies upon country information that was before the Tribunal.  That country information is annexed to an affidavit of Neha Vaidyanathan.  She is a solicitor employed by the Refugee and Immigration Legal Service.  And the annexure is a copy of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ report on Sri Lanka and it was dated 16 and 17 September 2015.  It was one of the reports that was footnoted by the IAA in looking at country information as to what did occur in Sri Lanka so as to put some credence to the Applicant’s claim as to his being rounded up. 

42. At paragraph 409 of that report, it says this:

    An emblematic case illustrative of the patterns described is the disappearance of cartoonist, Prageeth Ranjan Bandada Eknaligoda, who worked for LankaeNews, an outspoken critic of the government, he disappeared in Colombo on 24 January 2010 during the presidential election campaign.  According to information received by OISL, he was first arrested on 27 August 2009 by unidentified armed men travelling in a white van and was released the following day, though he continued to receive anonymous telephone calls and believed he was being followed.  On 24 January 2010, Mr Eknaligoda left his office in the evening but never arrived at the place where he was supposed to meet a colleague.  His fate and whereabouts have been unknown since then.  LankaeNews offices were searched by unidentified men, without producing a warrant, four days after Mr Eknaligoda had disappeared.

43. The Applicant contends that such country information is sufficient to say that persons who do have a profile have been released after one day as this particular cartoonist was.  Therefore, it is illogical for the IAA to come to the conclusion that the Applicant was not a person with links to the LTTE because he had been released so soon after his arrest. 

1. The Applicant also looks at what the IAA had said about this questioning about T.  At paragraph 18, the IAA said:

   …The applicant claimed that he was detained for one night and questioned mainly about T, his coach from the sports club, and that they knew that T belonged to the LTTE, which he denied.  The next morning he was released and this was due to a priest and T who had reported his kidnapping to the police. [Identifying information omitted]

2. At his SHEV interview, the Applicant said he was questioned about whether he knew T was an LTTE member and he told them T was not an LTTE member.  The Applicant said that, at the time, he understood that they did not ask many questions about him personally. 

3. The Applicant says that this is a misunderstanding of the evidence that the Applicant was giving.  The Applicant says that the true way to look at the evidence, that the Applicant was giving here, was that the authorities were using a tricky method of interrogation by saying to them that, “We have this person T.  T says that you’re an LTTE member.  What do you say to that?” 

4. If that is so, then the questioning was not about T but about the Applicant and the Applicant’s being an LTTE member.  To this point, the Applicant draws upon a transcript of the interview with the delegate.  To put the matter in context, it is necessary to look at what the Applicant had disclosed in his statutory declaration of 20 June 2017 with regard to this aspect. 

5. At page 94 of the Court Book, at paragraph 16, the Applicant said:

   16. Around midnight, I was blindfolded again and taken by the Army officers for questioning.  They questioned me about whether I knew a man named T.  I told them that I knew him as he was my coach at the sports club.  I was a member of this club since from around 1999.  They told me that T was inside the camp at the time and that they knew T belonged to the LTTE.  I told the officers that T did not belong to the LTTE.  They asked me what I would do if they could prove that he was in fact a member of the LTTE.  I told them that they can shoot me if they find that T was an LTTE member.  The officers continued to question and torture me.  I still suffer from the injuries sustained during this time. 

   17. Early the next morning, the CID officers blindfolded me and placed a helmet over my head…[Identifying information omitted]

6. With regard to this aspect, one goes to page 35 of the affidavit of Ms Lester.  The transcript reads as follows – there is the use of a translator or an interpreter.  The delegate asked:

   So you said they spoke to you in Tamil.  Who do you think these men were?

   Answer:

   I don’t know who they are.

   Question:

   And when they said they were going to kill you the next time, why do you think they were targeting you?

   Answer:

   They suspect.

   Question:

   Suspect what?

7. Answer:

   They suspect me as a LTTE member.

   Question:

   Did they ask you during that incident did they ask you any questions about being in the LTTE?

   Answer:

   Yes.

   Question:

   And what did you say to them?

   Answer:

   So when they took me home, they asked me, “Do you know T?”  So when they asked me with T and I knew that I’m in danger but anyway I know T because he was my coach because I was doing sports.

   I was in the sports club and I was an active sports member.

   Question:

   So what did your sports coach have to do with the LTTE?

   Answer:

   So when they asked me whether I know T, I said yes because he was my coach.  And then they asked me, “do you know he’s an LTT member, T?”

   Question:

   And was he an LTTE member?

   Answer:

   No, he’s a coach.

   Question:

   So what was the purpose of this questioning?

   Answer:

   So they said that T is an LTT member and he’s inside and if you bring him in and if you ask him whether you are an LTT member and if he say yes, what will you do and I said, if he say it like that, you can shoot me at this place. 

   So he’s not an LTT member I joined them to do a good to the country only because I am not an LTT member but I am in that group, but I’m not LTT member.

   So that’s why I told them if he said that I’m LTT member, you have the right to shoot me.

   Question:

   And what did they say you think?

   Answer:

   So then they said we will bring T and we will question him, but they never brought T so next day, morning, only they released me. 

   So at that time, I understood that they did not ask much questions from me.  If they had questioned me even, I would have given someone to send escape, because that time important was to take care of my life and escape from that place.

   Question:

   Okay.  So after your release, what happened then?

   Answer:

   So after they release me, T and the church priest came.

8. The Applicant submits that one needs to only look at that and one would see that the questioning was not so much about the person, T, but about the Applicant’s questioning as to his being an LTTE member. 

9. So even if the IAA were relying upon those two aspects to come to the decision that they did, that they were not satisfied, then on neither of those grounds was such a conclusion open. 

10. It is trite to say that the decision of the IAA must be read as a whole.  It is clear that the IAA had looked at all of the aspects of the Applicant being a member or affiliated or presumed to be affiliated with the LTTE. 

11. Notwithstanding that the IAA had segmented their particular inquiries in the way in which they did, I am of the view that it was still open for them to come to the conclusion to which they came.  The Applicant, having been picked up solely because he was a Tamil person and then interviewed, physically abused and then let go did not automatically mean that the Sri Lankan authorities actually considered that he was linked to the LTTE.  There was no country information that would lead to that conclusion.  The IAA must be satisfied that the Applicant was perceived to be an LTTE member affiliate or have some sort of links. 

12. The fact that the Applicant was taken solely because he was a Tamil did not mean that he was automatically marked in this way.  The Applicant was not in any other way affiliated with the LTTE.  That was a specific finding of the IAA. 

13. Unlike the “emblematic” case, the Applicant was not a cartoonist and was not someone who was publicly espousing any opinion.  The Applicant was a Tamil with no other traits that would mean that he was, in any way, a troublemaker.  When one looks at that aspect, the emblematic case is not something that would show that the obvious inference from country information is that once someone has been taken away by the Sri Lankan Army, that they are forever marked. 

14. If that were the case, and the IAA was using the fact that the Applicant was released after one day to find non-satisfaction, there may be some merit to this argument.  But without that necessary aspect of country information, it seems to me that, notwithstanding that the Applicant had been taken away in the manner in which he was, being released after one day is sufficient for the Immigration Assessment Authority to be not satisfied that this meant that the Applicant had the leanings. 

15. Because of that, I do not find that it was an illogical conclusion to come to, in paragraph 19, which means that paragraphs 29, 33, 38, 39 which go to other aspects of the claim also are not tainted. 

16. Also, with the alternate aspect of the ground, having gone through the Applicant’s statutory declaration and his interview with the delegate, I am not of the view that the Authority had a misunderstanding or an erroneous understanding of the Applicant’s evidence about his interrogation that would cause them to misconstrue his claim. 

17. For these reasons, Ground one fails. 

18. Ground two is that

    2. The Authority’s decision was based on findings and inference which were not supported by logical grounds, or alternatively, it involved it failing to consider one of the applicant’s claims as made and, thus is affected by jurisdictional error…

19. This ground is based on the claim that the Applicant made in the post-interview submissions; that is, that if he tried to reunite with his family in India, because he is known to Q Branch of the Tamil Nadu Police, there is a heightened risk of him being deported to Sri Lanka or detained in a special refugee camp. 

20. As I have already explained, the IAA were not satisfied the Applicant had a well-founded fear of harm on this basis if he were to be returned to India.  As I raised with Counsel during the course of the hearing, there was never any claim for the Applicant to be returned to India. The whole proceeding, the hearing and then the IAA review, was based on the Applicant being removed to Sri Lanka.  In a post-interview submissions, the representative for the Applicant did not make a claim that the Applicant would be removed to India. 

21. It does not seem to me that there would be any basis for ground two being a proper ground because if the Applicant were to go to India, he would be going of his own volition.  It is not that the government of Australia would be removing him to India. 

22. So for that reason, I do not believe that there is a proper claim that would be a basis for a finding that the Applicant met the refugee criteria or the complementary criteria on that basis that if he went back to India he might be discriminated against by Q Branch and put into a special camp. 

23. The basis, though, of the complaint is that the IAA had said that they had already discounted that the Applicant did have any LTTE association because of his involvement with the forest conservation organisation.  The Applicant submits that whether or not the IAA came to that conclusion or not, the fact is that he had told the Q Branch people that that is where he worked. The submission was that because he had said that, Q Branch itself had come to a conclusion that he had LTTE leanings or affiliations.  And it should have been on that basis that the IAA considered that particular claim. 

24. When one looks at how the IAA dealt with the matter in paragraph 22, the IAA noted that the Applicant continued to reside at Mandapam Camp.  Given that he came to Tamil Nadu in 2007 and did not leave there until 2013 (which meant that the Applicant was living in that area for six years), the country information was that if the Applicant did have suspected links, he would have been sent to the special camp. 

25. The fact that the Applicant was not sent to the special camp and resided for the six years in the Mandapam Camp, was such that would allow the IAA to be not satisfied that the Applicant was viewed with any suspicion by the Indian authorities or that he was considered an LTTE member or affiliate. 

26. It seems to me that the IAA did deal with that aspect appropriately.  However, as I have already said, I do not accept that this was a proper claim, notwithstanding that the IAA has dealt with it in paragraph 22. 

27. Having gone through the matter as I have, I do not find that there has been demonstrated any jurisdictional error.  I, therefore, dismiss the application with costs in the sum of $6000.

I certify that the preceding seventy (70) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for judgment of Judge Vasta

Date: 31 July 2020