NAPH v Minister for Immigration

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA

NAPH v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION [2002] FMCA 290

MIGRATION – Review of decision of RRT – applicant failed to satisfy Tribunal of genuiness of his well founded fear of persecution – no evidence of bias – no conduct which would provide ground for review under s.39B Judiciary Act.

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

NAAV v Minister for Immigration  [2002] FCAFC 228
Zahid Minister for Immigration [2002] FCA 1108
Minister for Immigration v Eshetsu (1999) 197 CLR 611

Applicant: NAPH

Respondent: MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & MULTICULTURAL & INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

File No: SZ 762 of 2002

Delivered on: 11 November 2002

Delivered at: Sydney

Hearing Date: 11 November 2002

Judgment of: Raphael FM

REPRESENTATION

For the Applicant: Applicant in person

Counsel for the Respondent: Mr R Bromwich

Solicitors for the Respondent: Clayton Utz

ORDERS

1. Application dismissed.

2. Applicant to pay respondent’s costs in the sum of $4,000.00.

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES
COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT
SYDNEY

SZ 762 of 2002

NAPH

Applicant

And

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & MULTICULTURAL
& INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

Respondent

1. The applicant in this matter is a citizen of Bangladesh who arrived in Australia on 10 November 1999 on a Malaysian passport.  On

   
   

   8 December 1999 he lodged an application for protection (class XA) visa with the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs under the Migration Act 1958. 

2. On 10 February 2000 a Delegate of the Minister refused to grant a protection visa, and on 6 March 2000 the applicant applied for review of that decision.  The review was carried out in May 2002 and a decision was made on 30 May 2002 and handed down on 25 June 2002.  It is in respect of that decision that the applicant seeks review from this Court.

3. The applicant provided to the Tribunal and to the Delegate a considerable amount of written information purporting to establish his identity, his political affiliations, and the reasons for his well-founded fear of persecution for Convention reasons.  These documents are reproduced in the Court Book between CB [60] and [82].  The applicant claimed to be politically active in the Jatiya Party before he left Bangladesh.  He claimed to have been arrested, he claimed to have been shot at, and he claimed that there was a warrant out for his arrest if he should ever return to Bangladesh. 

4. The Tribunal examined all of these allegations.  It considered all of the documents.  It noted the existence of country information claiming that the production of false documents was rife in Bangladesh.  The Tribunal noted that the responses given by the applicant to questions put to him was vague and lacking in detail.  In the end the Tribunal came to the conclusion that it could not accept any of the story put to it by the applicant, save the possibility that he was indeed a Bangladeshi citizen. 

5. The Tribunal came to the conclusion that the documents were in all probability created for the purposes of strengthening the applicant's claim, and it was…