SZKKG & Anor v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

[2008] HCASL 393

SZKKG & ANOR
v
MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP & ANOR
[2008] HCASL 393
S569/2007

1. This is an application for special leave to appeal from a decision of the Federal Court of Australia (Jessup J), given on 8 November 2007, dismissing an appeal from a decision of the Federal Magistrates Court (Scarlett FM), given on 7 June 2007. The Federal Magistrates Court dismissed proceedings before that Court for judicial review of a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal affirming a decision of a delegate of the first respondent not to grant protection visas to the applicants.

2. The applicants, husband and wife, are citizens of India. The first applicant, the husband, claimed to fear persecution in India for reasons relating to his religion and, in particular, alleged threats made against him by members of a different religion. The second applicant, the wife, based her claim upon the fact that she was a dependent of the first applicant. Although the Tribunal accepted that the first applicant was injured while participating in a religious festival in India in 1998, the Tribunal was not satisfied that he suffered serious harm of a type or a gravity that could be called persecution. The Tribunal also found that the chance of the first applicant suffering persecution in India in the reasonably foreseeable future was remote. Scarlett FM examined and rejected each of the applicants' grounds for judicial review, most of which were, in substance, challenges to the Tribunal's findings of fact. In the Federal Court, Jessup J rejected the applicants' appeal, which was based on a complaint, found by Jessup J to be without any factual foundation, about the way the Tribunal dealt with the application for review.  There is nothing in the papers filed in support of the application for special leave to appeal to this Court that suggests any error in the reasoning of the Federal Court.

3. An appeal has no prospect of success.

1. The application is dismissed.

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

A.M. Gleeson
16 July 2008 J.D. Heydon