SZOVG v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

[2012] HCASL 39

SZOVG
v
MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP & ANOR
[2012] HCASL 39
S397/2011

1. The applicant is a citizen of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ("the PRC").  He arrived in Australia on 29 August 2009 and applied for a protection visa on 18 May 2010.  In his application he claimed to fear persecution because he did not like the Communist Party and he wanted Hong Kong to "belon[g] to England forever".  He failed to attend an interview with an officer of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.  The Minister's delegate refused the application.

2. The applicant sought merits review of the delegate's decision in the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal").  He failed to attend the hearing before the Tribunal.  The Tribunal determined to make its decision without taking any further action to enable the applicant to appear before it[1].  The Tribunal was not satisfied that the applicant faced a real chance of persecution should he return to the PRC now or in the future.  It affirmed the delegate's decision.

   [1]Migration Act 1958 (Cth), s 426A.

3. An application for judicial review of the Tribunal's decision was dismissed by the Federal Magistrates Court (Barnes FM). 

4. An appeal to the Federal Court of Australia (Flick J) was dismissed.

5. The applicant seeks special leave to appeal from the orders of the Federal Court. The proposed grounds in the draft Notice of Appeal comprise an unparticularised assertion that the Tribunal was affected by "jurisdictional errors" and a complaint that it failed to accept "the fact I experienced in Hong Kong CHINA". The jurisdictional error identified in the Written Case is the Tribunal's asserted failure to comply with s 424A(1) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth). No error in Flick J's reasons for dismissing this ground is articulated. The remaining assertions in the Written Case are directed to the merits of the Tribunal's determination. If special leave to appeal were granted there would be no prospects that the appeal would succeed.

6. The application is dismissed.

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

J.D. Heydon
29 February 2012 V.M. Bell