SZDWG & Anor v MIMIA & Anor

[2006] HCATrans 398

[2006] HCATrans 398

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
  Sydney  No S506 of 2005

B e t w e e n -

SZDWG

First Applicant

SZDWH

Second Applicant

and

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

First Respondent

REFUGEE REVIEW TRIBUNAL

Second Respondent

Application for special leave to appeal

Publication of reasons and pronouncement of orders

KIRBY J
CALLINAN J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT CANBERRA ON THURSDAY, 3 AUGUST 2006, AT 1.20 PM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

__________________

KIRBY J:   These applicants who are Hindus and are husband and wife lived in a suburb in Gujarat in India, the population of which was eighty per cent Muslim.  The husband claims to have been threatened and beaten there by Muslim gangs who also ordered him to shut down his tailoring business a number of times.  He lived in London from 1997 to 2001 while his wife remained in India.  On his return to India he and his wife have again, he says, been assaulted and threatened with other violence.  It is claimed that the authorities have failed to respond to his complaints.

The applicants were refused protection visas by the first respondent.

They sought a review of that refusal by the Refugee Review Tribunal (“the Tribunal”).  The Tribunal was unimpressed by the applicants’ claims which it considered to be both groundless and exaggerated:  there may have been some random communal discrimination and violence but there was evidence that the Indian government was effectively dealing with these incidents.

The applicant husband could have sought protection on three occasions in other countries but never sought to do so.  Furthermore it would have been possible, even assuming the applicants’ claims to be valid, for the family to located elsewhere in India, the population of which has a Hindu majority of about eighty-one per cent.

Neither the Federal Magistrates Court nor the Federal Court, to which the applicants ultimately appealed, was able to detect any jurisdictional or like error on the part of the Tribunal and nor can we.

Accordingly the application for special leave must be dismissed.

Because the applicants are unrepresented, this application for special leave falls to be dealt with in accordance with rule 41.10 of the High Court Rules 2004. Pursuant

to rule 41.10.5 we direct the Registrar to draw up, sign and seal an order dismissing the application. I publish that disposition signed by Callinan J and myself.

AT 1.22 PM THE MATTER WAS CONCLUDED