SZORO v Minister for Immigration

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA

SZORO v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & ANOR [2011] FMCA 84

MIGRATION – Review of decision of RRT – where applicant claims Tribunal failed to deal with an integer of his claims and conducted itself in a manner consistent with apprehended bias – whether Tribunal misapplied dicta in Guitta Levy or MMM – whether remarks made about applicant’s credibility indicated apprehended bias.

Guitta Levy v Minister for Immigration& Anor [1998] FCA 1666
Applicant A v Minister for Immigration & Ethnic Affairs (1997) 142 ALR 331
Minister for Immigration and Ethic Affairs v Guo & Anor (1997) 191 CLR 559
SZHDL v Minister for Immigration& Anor [2008] FCA 356
Ling v Minister for Immigration & Anor [2004] FCA 1069
Re Refugee Review Tribunal; Ex parte H [2001] 75 ALJR 982
Minister for Immigration & Anor v SZJSS [2010] HCA 48
MMM v Minister for Immigration & Anor (1998) FCA 1664

Applicant: SZORO

First Respondent: MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & CITIZENSHIP

Second Respondent: REFUGEE REVIEW TRIBUNAL

File Number: SYG 2204 of 2010

Judgment of: Raphael FM

Hearing date: 10 February 2011

Date of Last Submission: 10 February 2011

Delivered at: Sydney

Delivered on: 21 February 2011

REPRESENTATION

Solicitors for the Applicant: Turner Coulson

Counsel for the Respondents: Mr T Reilly

Solicitors for the Respondents: Sparke Helmore

ORDERS

1. Application dismissed.

2. Applicant to pay the First Respondent’s costs assessed in the sum of $5,850.00.

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES
COURT OF AUSTRALIA
AT SYDNEY

SYG 2204 of 2010

SZORO

Applicant

And

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & CITIZENSHIP

First Respondent

REFUGEE REVIEW TRIBUNAL

Second Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

1. The applicant is a citizen of Nepal who arrived in Australia in March 2007 as a student.  He studied at a college in Sydney from May 2007 until February 2008.  In May 2008 he was arrested, charged and convicted of a series of offences for which he was imprisoned for eighteen months.  Upon his release from prison in November 2009 he was placed in immigration detention and he there applied for a protection visa.  He is not currently in immigration detention.

2. The grounds upon which the applicant claimed to be a person to whom Australia owed protection obligations was that he feared, should he return to Nepal, that he would be persecuted for his Christian beliefs and his activities as a proselytiser.  He claimed that he had been adopted at birth into a prominent family of the Newari tribe that was active on the Newari committee for Guthi. The Newaris were sympathetic to those promoting Hinduism within Nepal including some Hindu extremists such as the Shiv Sena group.  The applicant claimed that his father’s sister had introduced him to Christianity of which she was a follower and from about the age of fourteen he attended bible studies with his cousins at the Gyaneshwor Church in Kathmandu.  He claimed that he had converted to Christianity although he had not been baptised.  It would appear that he did not tell his father about his abandonment of Hinduism prior…