SZDDZ v Minister for Immigration
[2005] FMCA 67
•27 January 2005
FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA
| SZDDZ v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION | [2005] FMCA 67 |
| MIGRATION – Visa – protection visa – application for review of a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal – applicant is a citizen of India. |
Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth)
Migration Act 1958 (Cth)
| Applicant: | SZDDZ |
| Respondent: | MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & MULTICULTURAL & INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS |
| File No: | SYG 940 of 2004 |
| Delivered on: | 27 January 2005 |
| Delivered at: | Sydney |
| Hearing date: | 27 January 2005 |
| Judgment of: | Scarlett FM |
REPRESENTATION
| The Applicant: | Appeared in person |
| Solicitors for the Respondent: | Blake Dawson Waldron |
ORDERS
The Application is dismissed.
The Applicant is to pay the Respondent’s costs in this Application fixed in the sum of $1,700.00.
| FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT SYDNEY |
SYG 940 of 2004
| SZDDZ |
Applicant
And
| MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & MULTICULTURAL & INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS |
Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
Application
The application before the court is an application for review of a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal that was handed down on
16 February 2004. The applicant is a citizen of India. He arrived in Australia on 16 July 2003. On 13 August in that year he lodged an application for a protection visa. In that application he said that he was a Muslim from Tamil Nadu. He said that he was persecuted because of his religious belief. He said that he was the target of Hindu fundamentalists and the government of the BJP party. On 29 September 2003 a delegate of the Minister for Immigration refused to grant his application for a protection visa.
The applicant then applied to the Refugee Review Tribunal for a review of that decision. On Thursday, 12 February 2004 the Tribunal heard the application for review. The applicant attended the review and he gave evidence. The Tribunal member asked him a large number of questions and he replied to those questions. He said, and this is at page 78 of the court book, that he was unable to go to India at that time and asked that he be given some time to organise himself and that he would return to India eventually.
The Tribunal member told him that she was required to determine his application in accordance with Australian law and was not able to grant him that extra time. The court book shows that the Tribunal considered in some detail the applicant's claim. Unfortunately for the applicant the Tribunal did not accept a number of parts of his case. The Tribunal described his evidence as contradictory and inconsistent at page 85 of the court book.
The Tribunal described his evidence of a job offer as implausible and that part of it had been fabricated to support his refugee claim. The Tribunal did not accept that the applicant had worked and lived in Gujarat between 1984 and 1990. The Tribunal did not accept that he worked at the mosque there in the mid 1990s.
The Tribunal did not accept that the applicant operated a store in Gujarat. The Tribunal did not accept that the applicant was beaten and injured during the religious rioting in Gujarat in 2002. The Tribunal did not accept that the applicant faced any generalised risk of harm from members of extremist Hindu groups or the BJP. The Tribunal found that there was no evidence from which he could accept that the applicant had been harmed or threatened by members of these groups in the past. In short, the Tribunal did not accept the applicant's case on its facts.
The amended application filed on 17 September claims that the Tribunal's decision that the applicant was not a refugee was not based upon reasoning which provided a rational or logical foundation for this belief. The applicant also relied on grounds set out in his original application filed on 31 March 2004. Those grounds which are set out in a rather familiar pro forma way refer to bad faith, deprivation of natural justice, a decision that did not reflect material facts,
pre-judgment, confusion of the facts and ignoring other facts.
The applicant has told me today that he does not believe that the Tribunal got the law wrong nor that the Tribunal treated him unfairly. There is no evidence to suggest the Tribunal did treat him unfairly. The regrettable fact for the applicant is that the Tribunal did not accept his evidence. As his application does nothing more than seek a review on the facts, in other words a merits review, there is no ground upon which I can grant the application. No reviewable error has been shown and I dismiss the application.
The application is dismissed. The applicant is to pay the respondent's costs in the sum of $1700.
I certify that the preceding eight (8) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for judgment of Scarlett FM
Associate: S. Polley
Date: 1 February 2005
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