SZJYZ v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

[2008] HCASL 63

SZJYZ
v
MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP & ANOR
[2008] HCASL 63
S431/2007

1. This is an application for special leave to appeal against a judgment of the Federal Court of Australia (Mansfield J).  That court dismissed an appeal from orders of the Federal Magistrates Court (Scarlett FM).  In turn, that court had dismissed an application for judicial review directed to the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal").  The Tribunal affirmed the decision of a delegate of the Minister not to grant the applicant a protection visa pursuant to the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) ("the Act").

2. The applicant is a national of India, having settled in that country from Burma at a young age.  The first basis of his claim for protection was his assertion that a "dangerous criminal gang who kill people as a profession" had been arrested as a result of intelligence supplied by him.  He claimed to have been reduced to hiding by the risks presented to him by the gang which he claimed had connections all over India. 

3. In a second alleged basis for protection, revealed for the first time to the Tribunal, the applicant claimed to have been involved in political action against landlords and to have helped form the Christian People's Party of India which participated in action that, he asserted, led to threats on his life, serious assaults and fear resulting in his departure from India.  The second version of events attributed the suggested persecution to the applicant's Roman Catholic religion.

4. The Tribunal formed an adverse view of the applicant's credibility.  In view of the history of his successive claims, the disparity in those claims, the delays in making them and their contents, this (as the Federal Magistrate observed) was "hardly surprising".

5. The conclusions both of the Federal Magistrate and of Mansfield J, rejecting the claims of jurisdictional or other legal error, are orthodox, convincing and do not attract the intervention of this Court. 

6. The special case filed in this Court followed a template, referring to the Muin litigation, without specific indication of the relevance of the cited authority to the applicant's case.  The claim of a lack of good faith and of bias on the part of the Tribunal is not supported by evidence or the record.  The application does not enjoy reasonable prospects of success.  It is therefore refused.

7. Pursuant to Rule 41.10.5 we direct the Registrar to draw up, sign and seal an order dismissing the application.

M. D. Kirby
27 March 2008 J. D. Heydon