Saad and Minister for Foreign Affairs

Administrative Appeals Tribunal

DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2007] AATA 1675

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL      )

)          No 2006/2548

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE  DIVISION		)
Re		ABDL hamed saad aka ABDEL-HAMID IDAAYEN

Applicant

And MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal Ms Robin Hunt, Senior Member

Date20 August 2007

PlaceSydney

Decision The reviewable decision of 24 November 2006 is affirmed.

..................[Sgd]...................

Ms Robin Hunt
  Senior Member

Mr Saad has been convicted of passport fraud. In May 2003, he presented a cancelled name change certificate in a passport application. The passport issued in that name was subsequently cancelled and Mr Saad was charged with making a false statement on a passport application. He was found guilty in August 2004, received a $500 fine and was placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond.

Section 14(2) of the Australian Passports Act 2005 (‘the Act’) provides for the Minister to refuse an Australian passport following a request from a competent authority that there are: a) reasonable grounds to suspect that if a passport were issued to a person, the person would be likely to engage in conduct that might constitute an indictable offence against the Act, and b) that the person should be refused an Australian passport in order to prevent the person engaging in the conduct. Section 22(2)(d) provides for the Minister to cancel a passport upon receipt of a competent authority request.

The circumstances of the reported losses of an damage to the passports issued to members of the Saad/Idaayen family are regarded as suspicious. As a competent authority under the Act, the Direction PFS suspects on reasonable grounds that the passport held by Abdl Hamed SAAD, and any future passports issued to him or to his spouse, Bedour IDAAYEN, are likely to be used in ways that might constitute an indictable offence under the Act, in particular, providing a travel document to another person and being reckless as to whether the document will be used by the other person in connection with travel or identification (s32(3) of the Act), selling an Australian travel document (s33), damaging an Australian travel document (s34), or bringing, taking or sending an Australian travel document across international borders being a document not issued to the person (s37).

In regard to the current passport applications for the three young children of the family (Fatima, Aisha and Noor), our legal advice is that it would be difficult for a competent authority to suspect on reasonable grounds that a child under the age of 10 years would be likely to engage in conduct that might constitute an indictable offence under the Act. This is because the Criminal Code provides that a child under the age of 10 years is not criminally responsible for an offence. We therefore see no immediate alternative other than to issue passports to the three children. We propose to consider possible legislative amendments to the Act to address the gap where a passport issued to a young child might be used by a person having parental…