SZQZH v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

[2013] HCASL 29

SZQZH

v

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP & ANOR

[2013] HCASL 29
S338/2012

1. The applicant is a citizen of India.  He arrived in Australia with his wife on 5 September 2009 on a student dependant visa.  On 2 March 2011, he applied for a Protection (Class XA) visa which was refused by a delegate of the first respondent on 2 May 2011.

2. On 28 November 2011, the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal") affirmed the delegate's decision.  In his application, the applicant claimed that his father, a member of the Akali Dal political party, had been threatened and harassed by members of the Congress Party in India.  After his father left India, threats and harassment were directed at the applicant.  The Tribunal found that the risk of the applicant facing serious harm if he returned to India by reason of his imputed political opinion or any other Convention reason was remote.  However, even if the risk were real, it was reasonably practical for the applicant to relocate within India.  The applicant had also claimed that after he separated from his wife in 2010, his in-laws, who are affiliated with the Congress Party, threatened him and his family.  The Tribunal considered that the family dispute was of a private and not of a political nature.

3. On 6 July 2012, the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia (Raphael FM) dismissed the applicant's application for judicial review of the Tribunal's decision.  Raphael FM held that the applicant had failed to make out any of the three grounds of review he pressed, including that the Tribunal demonstrated actual bias and failed to investigate the applicant's claims.

4. On 8 November 2012, the Federal Court of Australia (Foster J) dismissed the applicant's appeal from that decision.  The first ground of appeal alleged that Raphael FM failed to consider that the Tribunal had acted unreasonably in determining the applicant's application and had ignored relevant aspects of persecution and harm.  Foster J considered it to have no merit.  The second ground of appeal, that the Tribunal lacked the requisite satisfaction, had been advanced before Raphael FM.  Foster J found no error in his Honour's reasoning on that ground.

5. The application for special leave to appeal does not raise any question of law that would justify a grant of special leave.  An appeal to this Court would enjoy no prospects of success.

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

S.M. Kiefel
13 March 2013 S.J. Gageler