SZJJV v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

[2008] HCASL 447

SZJJV
v
MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP & ANOR
[2008] HCASL 447
S121/2008

1. This is an application for special leave to appeal from an order of the Federal Court of Australia dismissing the application of SZJJV to appeal from an adverse order of the Federal Magistrates Court.  The Federal Court was constituted by Moore J.  He determined an appeal from Lloyd-Jones FM.

2. The Federal Magistrate, in turn, had dismissed an application for review of a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal") which had refused review of, and confirmed, the decision of a delegate of the respondent Minister.  There had been intermediate proceedings rising in 2006 to the Federal Court of Australia.  However, these are not of present concern.

3. The applicant is a national of the People's Republic of China.  He arrived in Australia in December 2004 and promptly applied for a protection visa, claiming to be a refugee within the Refugees Convention and Protocol.  It was this application that, in February 2005, the Minister's delegate refused.  The applicant's claim to refugee status was based upon an alleged fear of persecution arising from the way he claimed to have been arrested, detained and wrongfully convicted of disturbing public order in China as a result of initiatives of a politically connected business rival.

4. The Tribunal's relevant rejection of the applicant's claim was based upon its finding that the applicant's problems were finite in time and localised in place.  Materially, the Tribunal did not accept that the applicant had gone into hiding after his release from detention.  It noted that he had set up a new business.  It rejected the various categories for protection that were, or might have been, propounded on the applicant's behalf.

5. In the Federal Magistrates Court, the applicant complained that the Tribunal had failed to comply with obligations under the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) ("the Act"), specifically s 424A. As the Tribunal pointed out, this contention was misconceived. Furthermore, other complaints made, of bias and breach of s 91R of the Act, were held not to have been made out.

6. Moore J, in the Federal Court, found no error, still less jurisdictional error, justifying the intervention of that court.  We agree.  In effect, the applicant is seeking to re-canvass factual and merits decisions reached by the Tribunal.  There is no reason to doubt the correctness of the Federal Court's approach and decision.  The Tribunal's findings of fact were made within jurisdiction.  They were untainted by jurisdictional, or other legal, error.  Special leave to appeal must therefore be refused.

7. In accordance with 41.10.5 of the High Court Rules we direct the Registrar to draw up, sign and seal an order dismissing the application.

M.D. Kirby
7 August 2008 J.D. Heydon