SZQUM v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

[2012] HCASL 151

SZQUM

v

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP & ANOR

[2012] HCASL 151
S156/2012

1. The applicant is a citizen of Nigeria, of Igbo ethnicity and Christian faith.  He also claims to be a citizen of South Africa.  He arrived in Australia on 28 November 2010.  He applied for a protection visa on 19 May 2011.  A delegate of the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship refused to grant the visa.

2. The applicant applied to the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal") for a review of the delegate's decision.  The applicant claims to fear persecution in Nigeria because he gave information to the police about members of a militant indigenous group, known as the Asare.  He claims that members of the Asare have tried to kill him and that the Nigerian authorities will not protect him.  He claims to fear persecution in South Africa by reason of his race and his membership of a particular social group which is identified as foreign-born South African citizens.  He claims that members of the Asare have located him in South Africa and for this reason, too, he would not be safe were he to return to South Africa.  The Tribunal formed an adverse view of the applicant's credibility.  It concluded that he had fabricated information about all aspects of his life and his reasons for seeking to engage Australia's protection obligations.  It affirmed the delegate's decision. 

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

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

5. The proposed ground of appeal is an unparticularised assertion of error in the failure to find that the applicant was denied natural justice and that the Tribunal had failed to "consider crucial evidence constructively before it".  The written case does not engage with either aspect of the proposed ground of appeal, nor with the reasons of the Court below.  It is a reiteration of some of the factual matters upon which the applicant based his claim.  If special leave to appeal were granted the appeal would have no prospects of success. 

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
13 November 2012 V.M. Bell