SZOZN v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
[2011] HCASL 206
SZOZN
v
MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP & ANOR
[2011] HCASL 206
S308/2011
The applicant is a citizen of India and arrived in Australia on 19 May 2008. He applied for a Protection (Class XA) visa on 11 June 2010. On 25 October 2010, a delegate of the first respondent refused his application.
On 13 January 2011, the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal") affirmed the delegate's decision. The applicant claimed that he was a religious Sikh who was victimised by Indian authorities and Hindi extremists, including being detained and tortured by police. On 9 December 2010, the Tribunal wrote to the applicant advising that it was unable to make a favourable decision on the information before it and inviting him to give oral evidence and present arguments at a hearing on 12 January 2011. The applicant did not attend the hearing or contact the Tribunal to explain his non-attendance, and the Tribunal decided to make its decision without taking any further action to enable the applicant to appear before it. The Tribunal held that it was unable to be satisfied on that evidence that the applicant will suffer serious harm if he returns to India and nor, therefore, that Australia owed protection obligations to him.
On 30 May 2011, the Federal Magistrates Court (Scarlett FM) dismissed the applicant's application for a review of the Tribunal's decision. The grounds advanced by the applicant included that the Tribunal did not properly consider his application and violated principles of natural justice. The claims were unparticularised. Scarlett FM held that it had not been shown that the Tribunal had committed jurisdictional error. The exercise by the Tribunal of its discretion to make its decision without taking any further action to enable the applicant to appear before it had not miscarried.
On 17 August 2011, the Federal Court of Australia (Robertson J) dismissed the applicant's appeal. His Honour held that, to the extent that the applicant's grounds of appeal identified possible jurisdictional errors, they were not sustainable in light of the express terms of the Tribunal's decision. The Tribunal did not fail to consider the applicant's case. Other matters raised in the notice of appeal went to the merits of the Tribunal's decision, which his Honour had no jurisdiction to deal with.
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.
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
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