NAFQ v Minister for Immigration

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA

NAFQ v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION [2002] FMCA 192

MIGRATION – Application for review of decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal – applicant alleged that Tribunal failed to consider him as part of a particular social group – jurisdictional error not an available ground for review.

Migration Act 1958 (Cth) s.474
Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth) s.39B

SBBK v Minister for Immigration, Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs [2002] FCA 565
NAAV v Minister for Immigration, Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs [2002] FCAFC 228

Applicant: NAFQ

Respondent: MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & MULTICULTURAL & INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

File No: SZ 507 of 2002

Delivered on: 30 August 2002

Delivered at: Sydney

Hearing Date: 16 August 2002

Judgment of: Raphael FM

REPRESENTATION

Counsel for the Applicant: Mr R Nair

Counsel for the Respondent: Mr S Lloyd

Solicitors for the Respondent: Sparke Helmore

ORDERS

1. Application dismissed.

2. Applicant pay the respondent’s costs in the amount of $3,750.00. 

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES
COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT
SYDNEY

SZ 507of 2002

NAFQ

Applicant

And

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & MULTICULTURAL
& INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

1. The applicant in this matter is a Pakistani citizen who first arrived in Australia on 17 March 1992.  After going through a series of visa applications and appearing before a series of Tribunals he founds his way to the Refugee Review Tribunal on 5 December 2001.  The Tribunal handed down its decision on 14 March 2002. 

2. The applicant claimed refugee status on the basis of an alleged well-founded fear of persecution arising out of his membership of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) a political party in Pakistan to which the Bhutto family belonged.  The applicant claimed that not only was he a member of PPP but also members of his family and one uncle was an office holder in the party.  The applicant referred in his submissions to the Tribunal to the antipathy which existed between the PPP and the PML, the party of Mr Sharif which was in power when the Bhutto PPP party was not.  Both of these parties ceased to be in power after the coup organised by the current President of that country, General Pervez Musharraf. 

3. Evidence before the Tribunal indicated that the applicant had been backwards and forwards from Pakistan several times during his residence in Australia.  He had secured four Pakistani passports during that time. 

4. The Tribunal in its short findings and reasons stated the following:

   “The Tribunal finds that the Applicant’s repeated access to genuine passports is very strong evidence of his unremarkable profile with successive governments and regimes in Pakistan, from Zia, through Bhutto and Sharif.  The Tribunal can find no reason for concluding that the current junta would deny him freedom of movement within Pakistan or in and out of it.

   The Tribunal concludes that the Applicant’s claims amount to an unreliable mish-mash of ill-considered ambits.  The Tribunal is satisfied that the Applicant has never been afraid to return to Pakistan, let alone for Convention-related reasons, especially given the number of times he has…