SZBOD v Minister for Immigration

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA

SZBOD v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION [2005] FMCA 63

MIGRATION – Application to review decision of Refugee Review Tribunal – summary dismissal – no reasonable cause of action. 

Muin v Refugee Review Tribunal [2002] HCA 30
General Steel Industries v Commissioner for Railway (1964) 112 CLR 236
SZBWF v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs [2004] FMCA 83
NAAY v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs [2003] FMCA 46

Applicant: SZBOD

Respondent: MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & MULTICULTURAL & INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

File No: SYG2047 of 2003

Delivered on: 27 January 2005

Delivered at: Sydney

Hearing date: 27 January 2005

Judgment of: Barnes FM

REPRESENTATION

Counsel for the Applicant: Nil

Solicitors for the Applicant: Nil

Counsel for the Respondent: Nil

Solicitors for the Respondent: Australian Government Solicitor

ORDERS

1. The application for judicial review is dismissed summarily pursuant to Rule 13.10A of the Federal Magistrates Court Rules.

2. The applicant pay the respondent Minister's costs fixed in the sum of $3,000.

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES
COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT
SYDNEY

SYG2047 of 2003

SZBOD

Applicant

And

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & MULTICULTURAL & INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

(Revised from transcript)

1. These are proceedings in which the respondent seeks dismissal of proceedings that were initiated by the applicant seeking review of a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal.  On 17 September 2003 the Tribunal handed down a decision affirming a decision of a delegate of the respondent not to grant the applicant a protection visa.  On
   2 October 2003 the applicant filed an application in this court seeking review of that decision.  The application contained a number of unparticularised grounds.  On 4 February 2004 at a directions hearing orders were made by consent, including an order that the applicant file and serve an amended application setting out in full the grounds relied on together with any affidavit material to be relied on by 5 April 2004 and file and serve points of claim and further affidavits in relation to the matter pleaded in ground 2 of the application which contended, without elaboration, that her case was identical with the High Court decision in Muin v Refugee Review Tribunal [2002] HCA 30.

2. The applicant failed to comply. The matter came before Federal Magistrate Driver on 6 September 2004. By that stage the applicant had filed an amended application on 27 August 2004. It was ordered that the matter proceed on that basis and the respondent had liberty to seek summary dismissal. On 5 October 2004 an application was filed by the respondent seeking orders that the proceedings be dismissed pursuant to Rule 13.10A of the Federal Magistrates Court Rules as disclosing no reasonable cause of action.

3. The background to these proceedings is that the applicant, who is a citizen of Bangladesh, claimed to fear persecution in essence because of her Ahmadiyya religion.  In the Tribunal reasons for decision the Tribunal accepted some but not all of the applicant's claims, accepting that she was of the religion claimed but…