SZKHI & Anor v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

[2008] HCASL 172

SZKHI & ANOR
v
MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP & ANOR
[2008] HCASL 172
S570/2007

1. The applicants are husband and wife and are citizens of India.  They arrived in Australia on 16 August 2006.  A delegate of the first respondent refused their application for protection visas on 27 September 2006.  The applicant husband claimed to have been pressured by a local Muslim businessman with political connections to sell valuable property that he owned and that, when he refused to sell the property, he was injured by persons acting for the businessman.  The applicant husband also claimed that the businessman had shown an interest in his wife and pressured her to be with him.  On 6 February 2007 the Refugee Review Tribunal dismissed the application for review.  Whilst the Tribunal accepted most of the applicant husband's claims, it was not satisfied that the police had failed to investigate his complaints as claimed.  The Tribunal concluded that the harm the applicant feared was not serious harm and was not for a Convention reason.  The Tribunal was also satisfied that relocation was a reasonable option for him.

1. Turner FM dismissed an application for review of the Tribunal's decision on 19 June 2007.  His Honour found that the Tribunal's findings as to the seriousness of the harm and the issue of relocation were open to it.  His Honour agreed that the claims of sexual harassment of the applicant wife did not disclose a Convention basis.

1. On 8 November 2007 the Federal Court (Stone J) dismissed the applicants' appeal.  Her Honour held that the Tribunal had applied the correct test in determining the effectiveness of State protection.  The applicants' complaints were otherwise directed to the merits of the Tribunal's decision.

1. The applicants have not advanced any question of law that would justify the grant of special leave to appeal.  The Tribunal's decision turned upon its view that the applicants' claims did not reveal a Convention-based fear of harm, a finding of fact which was open to the Tribunal.  There is no reason to doubt the correctness of the decisions below.

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

W.M.C. Gummow	S.M. Kiefel
24 April 2008