SZQES v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

[2012] HCASL 100

SZQES

v

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP & ANOR

[2012] HCASL 100
S77/2012

1. The applicant is a citizen of Bangladesh.  He arrived in Australia in June 2010.  Shortly thereafter he applied for a protection visa.  He claimed to have a long-standing involvement with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ("the BNP").  He claimed that he had been targeted by persons associated with the Awami League, who had threatened and harassed him, leading him to leave Bangladesh in February 2005. 

2. The applicant was interviewed by the Minister's delegate on 13 October 2010.  It appears that the interview was recorded.  The delegate refused the application.

3. The applicant applied for a review of the delegate's decision before the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal").  He gave evidence before the Tribunal on 4 March 2011.  In the course of his evidence he said that his home had been ransacked on one occasion.  The Tribunal put to him that he had given an account in his departmental interview that his home had been ransacked on two occasions.  The applicant responded that his evidence was truthful but that sometimes he was mistaken about dates and times.  The applicant said that in late 2004 or early 2005 his political opponents had filed a "false case" against him in a court in Bangladesh.  The Tribunal put to him that his account concerning his knowledge of the false case given at the hearing differed from his account given in the departmental interview. 

4. At the conclusion of the hearing the Tribunal gave the applicant until 18 March 2011 to make further submissions.  On 17 March 2011 the applicant's representative sought and was granted an extension until 1 April 2011 in which to furnish further material.  On 30 March 2011 the applicant's representative sought a further extension in order to obtain court documents relating to the false case.  The Tribunal declined to grant a further extension, noting that the applicant had had ample time in which to obtain court documents had he wished to do so. 

5. The Tribunal was not satisfied of the truth of the applicant's claims.  It affirmed the delegate's decision. 

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

7. An appeal to the Federal Court of Australia (Bromberg J) was dismissed. 

8. The applicant applies for special leave to appeal from the order of the Federal Court.  Central to his application is the contention that the Tribunal misled him at the hearing by stating that in the course of the departmental interview he had said that his home had been ransacked on two occasions.  This complaint was agitated before the Federal Magistrate and Bromberg J.  The applicant was represented by counsel before the Federal Magistrate.  It appears that he had earlier been supplied with an electronic recording of the departmental interview.  It was not tendered before the Federal Magistrate.  The applicant did not give evidence in those proceedings.  Nothing in the applicant's written case calls into question the correctness of Bromberg J's conclusion that in the circumstances the applicant had failed to discharge the onus of establishing the factual basis for this claim of jurisdictional error.  If special leave to appeal were granted the appeal would have insufficient prospects of success. 

9. The application is dismissed.

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

J.D. Heydon
20 June 2012 V.M. Bell