SZOZD v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

[2011] HCASL 207

SZOZD
v
MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP & ANOR
[2011] HCASL 207
S309/2011

1. The applicant is a citizen of India and arrived in Australia on 12 June 2010.  He applied for a Protection (Class XA) visa on 21 July 2010.  On 19 October 2010, a delegate of the first respondent refused his application.  

2. On 13 January 2011, the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal") affirmed the delegate's decision.  The applicant claimed to be a Muslim who suffered discrimination, intimidation, physical harassment and assault from people opposed to Muslims, including Hindu extremists.  On 30 November 2010, the Tribunal wrote to the applicant advising that it was unable to make a favourable decision relating to his application on the information before it and inviting the applicant to give oral evidence and present arguments at a hearing on 11 January 2011.  No response was received to this letter.  The applicant did not attend the hearing or contact the Tribunal to explain his failure to attend.  After some further attempts to contact the applicant, the Tribunal decided to make its decision without taking any further action to enable the applicant to appear before it.  The Tribunal concluded that there was such a lack of detail in the evidence before it that it could not be satisfied that the applicant had been persecuted for reasons of religion or political opinion. 

3. On 18 May 2011, the Federal Magistrates Court (Raphael FM) dismissed the applicant's application for review of the Tribunal's decision.  Raphael FM held that the matters raised by the applicant in his application were all matters of a factual nature, and that the applicant had not provided any basis upon which a jurisdictional error could be made out.  The Tribunal did not exceed its powers in relation to its decision to affirm the delegate's decision without taking further action to enable the applicant to appear before it.

1. On 19 August 2011, the Federal Court of Australia (Reeves J) dismissed the applicant's appeal.  His Honour held that the applicant's grounds of appeal sought to dispute the factual findings of the Tribunal, rather than to identify any jurisdictional error on its part.  To the extent that the applicant purported to identify legal errors, the errors alleged were unparticularised or misunderstood Raphael FM's findings.

2. The application to this Court does not advance any questions of law that would justify the grant of special leave to appeal.  There is no reason to doubt the correctness of the decisions below.  

3. 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
1 December 2011