SZDXC v MIMIA

[2006] HCATrans 394

[2006] HCATrans 394

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
  Sydney  No S500 of 2005

B e t w e e n -

SZDXC

Applicant

and

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

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 1.13 PM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

KIRBY J:   This applicant is a citizen of Pakistan.  The respondent refused to grant him a protection visa.  He said that he feared persecution as a member of the Shia sect at the hands of an extremist Sunni group, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (“SSP”).  He was, he said, on a “hit list” of the SSP who were sponsoring members of the Taliban who had settled in the area in which he lived.

The applicant applied to the Refugee Review Tribunal (“the Tribunal”) for a review of the decision to refuse him a visa.  He declined to give oral evidence before the Tribunal and accordingly his application was determined on the basis of the written material that he submitted.  The Tribunal could not be satisfied that the applicant genuinely feared the SSP.  The conditions of which he complained had existed, according to him, before 1997, yet he returned to Pakistan from Australia, where he had been studying, in 1999.  Even then, on his coming back to Australia to continue his studies he waited until August 2003 to apply for a visa.

In neither the Federal Magistrates Court nor the Federal Court was the applicant able to demonstrate any error of law or jurisdictional error justifying the intervention of either of those courts.

The applicant’s draft notice of appeal to this Court identifies no such error and misstates that the applicant gave oral evidence to the Tribunal.

Any appeal to this Court would have no prospects of success.  The application must, therefore, be dismissed.

Because the applicant is 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 this application. I publish that disposition signed by Callinan J and myself.

AT 1.14 PM THE MATTER WAS CONCLUDED