SZRPK v Minister for Immigration
[2013] FMCA 170
•20 February 2013
FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA
| SZRPK v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & ANOR | [2013] FMCA 170 |
| MIGRATION – Application to review decision of Refugee Review Tribunal – no jurisdictional error. |
| Migration Act 1958 (Cth), ss.65, 425, 477 |
| Appellant P119/2002 v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs [2003] FCAFC 230 Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZGUR and Another (2011) 241 CLR 594; [2011] HCA 1 Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZIAI (2009) 83 ALJR 1123; [2009] HCA 39 Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Wu Shan Liang and Others (1996) 185 CLR 259; [1996] HCA 6 NABE v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (No 2) (2004) 144 FCR 1; [2004] FCAFC 263 WACO v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2003) 131 FCR 511; [2003] FCAFC 171 |
| Applicant: | SZRPK |
| First Respondent: | MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & CITIZENSHIP |
| Second Respondent: | REFUGEE REVIEW TRIBUNAL |
| File Number: | SYG 1400 of 2012 |
| Judgment of: | Barnes FM |
| Hearing date: | 20 February 2013 |
| Delivered at: | Sydney |
| Delivered on: | 20 February 2013 |
REPRESENTATION
| Applicant: | In person |
| Solicitors for the Respondents: | Australian Government Solicitor |
ORDERS
The application is dismissed.
The applicant pay the costs of the first respondent fixed in the sum of $5,000.
| FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT SYDNEY |
SYG 1400 of 2012
| SZRPK |
Applicant
And
| MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & CITIZENSHIP |
First Respondent
| REFUGEE REVIEW TRIBUNAL |
Second Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
(Revised from transcript)
This is an application for review of a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal dated 21 May 2012. The Tribunal affirmed a decision of a delegate of the First Respondent not to grant the Applicant a protection visa.
I note first that the Applicant required and sought an extension of time under s.477(2) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) (the Act). The First Respondent consented and such an order was made at the directions hearing.
The Applicant, a citizen of Nepal, arrived in Australia, relevantly, in May 2011 and applied for protection in July 2011. In connection with his protection visa application, he claimed to fear the Maoists and the Young Communists League (the YCL) as a supporter of the Nepali Congress Party and as a member of a particular social group of young persons returning from abroad whom Maoists target.
The Tribunal recorded that the applicant had claimed that the Maoists and the YCL had targeted him and pressured him to make donations of increasing amounts since 2005. He also suggested that it was relevant that he had refused to join the Maoists and had been employed in South Korea for some six years which led them to presume he could afford to pay them money. He claimed he made small donations on one or two occasions, but was put under pressure and asked for larger donations that he did not pay. The Applicant also claimed to have been attacked and physically assaulted. In particular he claimed that he suffered injuries from a 2005 assault from which it took him some three or four months to recover.
The Applicant lived in Nepal until 2006. He then travelled to South Korea on a working visa, returning to Nepal on a number of occasions as set out in detail in the Tribunal’s reasons for decision. He claimed that from 2006 the Maoists had harassed his wife and family and that during his return visits to Nepal they presented him with new demands, sometimes in person, threatened him and forced him to go into hiding and to take other preventative measures.
Before the Tribunal the Applicant claimed that the Maoists had recently escalated their mistreatment of his wife and family and that on a specified date in January 2012 a number of Maoists had assaulted his wife and threatened to rape her in front of the children. He also claimed that the Maoists had prevented his wife from taking a job as a teacher in a boarding school.
In support of his application the Applicant submitted photocopies of documents in Nepalese with English translations said to be copies of four letters of demand from the Maoists and the YCL from 2008, 2009 and 2011, as well as a reference from his former South Korean employer.
He also submitted additional documents from Nepal with translations, including a letter from the National Human Rights Foundation in Kathmandu dated 21 February 2012, a discharge summary from a hospital from the Nepalese year equating to 2005, a letter from the Shree Birendranagar, Chitwan Village Development Committee Chairman dated 27 January 2012 and a letter from the local area police office dated 27 January 2012 as well as written submissions.
The Applicant attended a Tribunal hearing on 13 April 2012 conducted with the assistance of an accredited Nepalese/English interpreter. The Applicant’s brother was a witness. I note relevant to the grounds relied on by the Applicant that the only evidence before this Court of what occurred in the Tribunal hearing is the Tribunal reasons for decision.
The Tribunal set out an account of matters addressed at the hearing, including issues it raised with the Applicant in relation to aspects of his evidence. It also referred to a post-hearing submission received from the Applicant (apparently in response to issues raised by the Tribunal about documents he had provided) including a DHL courier bag indicating dispatch to the applicant of original documents from Kathmandu in March 2012, a docket from an earlier consignment and originals of the letters previously provided.
In its findings and reasons the Tribunal summarised the Applicant’s claim to fear harm from Maoists and YCL cadres. It observed that the immediate focus was his refusal to pay extortion demands or so-called donations for increasing amounts of money since 2005 but also that at various times he had identified other factors that he claimed appeared to have motivated the YCL to target him such as support for the Congress Party, his refusal to join or fight with the Maoists and the fact of his overseas employment leading them to presume he could afford to pay.
The Tribunal set out the Applicant’s claims about past alleged approaches by the Maoists and harassment of his wife and family from 2006, including his claims about demands and threats when he returned to Nepal and the claimed mistreatment of his wife and family in January 2012 which was said to signal the Maoists’ “now intensified adverse interest in him”.
The Tribunal accepted that the Applicant’s claims were broadly consistent with country information about the use of extortion, threats and physical violence against Nepalese by the Maoists and the YCL cadres, including against those perceived to be opposed to their political agenda or to have money. However it expressed “significant doubts about the veracity of the applicant’s account of his personal experiences in Nepal and his need for protection”, including major concerns about his past conduct and changeable evidence and other anomalies and unresolved issues.
The Tribunal set out in detail the concerns that it had with the Applicant’s evidence. It found that there was “minimal evidence … to support his and his brother’s assertions about his association with the NCP”. It noted that his references to the Party were cursory and that he spoke in only broad terms. He “did not have a membership card or other corroborative evidence of his association with the party”. He had had no contact with it or shown any other form of interest since leaving Nepal in 2006. The Tribunal also found that the Applicant’s failure to contact the Congress Party during his visits to Nepal and to advise them of the Maoists’ pursuit of him and his family raised doubts about whether he had any political affiliation with them.
The Tribunal accepted that the Applicant may have had some contact with Maoists seeking so-called donations, but had “concerns about the truth of their alleged demands, the applicant’s responses, and the threats and actions against him and his family”. The Tribunal was of the view that the Applicant’s evidence in this respect “lacked context, or signs of enquiry or reflection”. It found, as it explained, that it had disquiet about the Applicant’s “apparent lack of interest or questioning as to whether some payment to the Maoists might, at least in the short term, relieve the immediate pressure and threats that he claim[ed] his family fac[ed]”. It had regard to the fact that the increments over time in the amounts demanded and the text of the letters of demand suggested “a degree of record and account-keeping” that contrasted with the “haphazard, and ultimately futile, attempts at enforcement” by the Maoists and the YCL during the Applicant’s visits to Nepal. It observed that, notwithstanding the Applicant’s evidence that YCL cadres had personally called on him and hand delivered their demands, they had seemingly been unable to enforce these demands.
The Tribunal also found that while the Applicant had described demands and threats he had faced on his trips to Nepal, he had given “changeable and inconsistent evidence when the Tribunal asked peripheral questions, particularly about the impact on his family”. The Tribunal drew a contrast between the Applicant’s explanation for his failure to seek police assistance until after January 2012 (on the basis that there had only been verbal threats) and his evidence suggesting that his wife and others had been subject to sustained and sometimes serious threats even before January 2012.
The Tribunal found that “the Applicant [had] changed his evidence to meet his immediate needs” and that this “involved sometimes underscoring the sustained and serious nature of the threats to him and his family, and on other occasions, downplaying the threats prior to January 2012, to explain his conduct (his return trips to Nepal, and his failure to seek protection abroad until some 5½ years after first leaving Nepal)”. The Tribunal found that this added to its doubts about the truthfulness of the Applicant’s claims.
The Tribunal also had regard to the repeated and relatively lengthy return visits by the Applicant to Nepal, the absence of “claims or credible evidence that the applicant ever had to cancel, reschedule or postpone … [or] cut short visits and leave Nepal in response to threats” or any claim that “he had to seek support from the Nepalese authorities, the NCP or other groups to minimise the risk to himself and his family; or that he explored options to spend time in neighbouring countries”. The Tribunal found that the Applicant’s travel arrangements cast doubt on his claims to have been at risk and in hiding.
The Tribunal also had regard to the Applicant’s failure to seek protection in Korea from 2006 to 2011 in circumstances where he had a sympathetic employer who was willing to explore options for him to bring his family to South Korea. It addressed his explanations in that respect but found that his circumstances suggested he had ample opportunity to make inquiries if he had needed protection.
The Tribunal found that the Applicant’s failure to seek protection during an earlier visit to Australia in October/November 2010 (and the reasons he gave for this) “strongly suggest[ed] his focus [wa]s not on persecution or other dangers there, but rather long-term migration options”. It had regard to his explanation and that of his brother (in particular that the brother did not want to jeopardise sponsoring other relatives to visit and that the applicant had a year left to return to Korea) but found these issues difficult to reconcile with the claim that the Maoists and the YCL were harassing and frightening the Applicant’s wife and family members in Nepal. The Tribunal found that the Applicant was “markedly vague and unpersuasive as to why these factors outweighed his claimed concern that [he and his family] secure long-term protection at the earliest opportunity”.
The Tribunal also expressed doubts about the Applicant’s claim that more than six years after he first left Nepal the Maoists and YCL had a sustained interest in him. It addressed his claims about support for the NCP, his past defiance and work abroad but found that he had offered “little insight as to why [the Maoists and the YCL] would have such a sustained interest over such a long period”.
The Tribunal had particular concern about the alleged attack on the Applicant’s wife on 26 January 2012. It found that the Applicant had not offered insight into what and why there had been an escalation of interest in this way. It found the “supporting documents that he submitted [did] not address this issue, either” and that “the circumstances of the alleged incident [were] highly dubious”.
The Tribunal then addressed in some detail the supporting documentation provided by the Applicant, expressing concern in some instances about individual documents and about the documentation as a whole. It considered first the documents said to be from local authorities and a Nepalese NGO, but found them “highly problematic” for a number of reasons. The Tribunal found it difficult to believe that neither the Applicant nor his wife would have had cause to seek the assistance of such organisations prior to January 2012, given his claims about earlier events. It found that this raised some questions as to whether the Applicant’s wife had really approached these authorities for protection following an assault in early 2012 or whether her purpose was to secure documentation for the Applicant’s protection visa application.
The Tribunal also found that these documents “appear[ed] to have been prepared for a readership such as the Tribunal”. Thus, the VDC letter and the police certificate, prepared the day after the alleged attack, summarised the alleged home invasion but (like the document from the Human Rights Foundation) the VDC letter was “not a request to the police, but rather advice to a third party that they have done so”. The Tribunal found that the wording of this letter strongly suggested that its “real purpose was to highlight the applicant’s need for protection”. Moreover, while the police letter included a reference number, there was “no mention or copy of any actual police report” and although the letter indicated that an investigation and action had been initiated, there were no details or other evidence of police action apart from preparation of the letter. The Tribunal also found that the letter from the National Human Rights Foundation was expressed in terms that “strongly suggest[ed] that its real focus [was the Applicant’s protection visa] application”.
Overall, the Tribunal stated that it had “concerns about the circumstances in which these letters were produced, their purpose and the contents”. On the evidence before it the Tribunal considered “these letters were prepared at the request of the applicant (or a person acting on his behalf) for the purpose of [the visa] application, and not in the course of any genuine investigations into or response to the alleged home invasion”. The Tribunal had regard to country information indicating that there was “a high level of document fraud in Nepal” and also that officials were willing “to prepare documents to assist persons, even where they might not contain accurate information”. Against such background, “the Tribunal [was] of the view that the contents of the letters [we]re unreliable.
The Tribunal also addressed the four letters of demand on Nepal Communist Party letterhead in Nepalese and on YCL letterhead in English and Nepalese. It observed that they were “handwritten on what appear[ed] to be poor quality stationery and letterhead”. The Tribunal acknowledged that the Applicant claimed that at least the first two of these were hand delivered and that he had sent the Tribunal a copy of the envelope in which they were couriered to him from Nepal in 2011. However it found that there was “limited information on his having stored these documents” and that it was “not possible for the Tribunal to verify whether these [documents] appear[ed] on genuine Maoist stationery, or the circumstances in which the texts were written”.
As to the hospital discharge summary, the Tribunal found that it named the Applicant but misstated his age and occupation (although the Applicant had stated that he was a driver as well as a welder). It found that while this document identified the cause of injuries as physical assault, it did not corroborate the Applicant’s claims as it did not indicate the circumstances of the assault or support the Applicant’s claim that he needed three or four months to recover.
Insofar as the Applicant referred to a newspaper article about the home invasion, the Tribunal recorded it had not received a copy of this article and so had no independent evidence of its existence.
The Tribunal found that, “considered cumulatively”, the concerns it outlined before it turned to the supporting documentation were significant. It considered that the oral evidence of the Applicant’s brother carried “little weight as independent corroboration … because of his obvious personal interest” and that it had doubts about the provenance, and contents of the supporting documents and, in the case of the hospital document, about the relevance of such documents. The Tribunal found that the country information about widespread document fraud in Nepal added to its doubts.
The Tribunal concluded that “the brother’s oral evidence and the supporting documents [did] not overcome [its] significant concerns about the evidence as a whole”. It found that the Applicant’s claims and evidence for protection lacked credibility. On this basis it rejected the Applicant’s refugee claims.
Hence, the Tribunal did not accept the Applicant’s claims about membership or connection with the Nepalese Congress Party or his claims about mistreatment or pressure from the Maoists and YCL or demands of large donations. It was satisfied he may have made some small donations in accordance with widespread practice, but did not accept that he was subject to any threats of serious harm in this connection or that this gave rise to a real chance of serious harm. The Tribunal accepted that the Applicant suffered some injuries during a physical assault in mid-2005, but on the available evidence did not accept that the Maoists were responsible or that this had any political connection or any link with the Applicant’s later decision to seek employment in South Korea.
Given the extent of the Tribunal’s concerns about all the Applicant’s claims and evidence, including on his return trips to Nepal and since his arrival in Australia, the Tribunal did not accept that he came to the attention of the Maoists or other potential protagonists on his return to Nepal or that he faced extortion demands, threats or other harm, was forced to go into hiding, required protection, or prolonged his stay in Korea to avoid possible persecution in Nepal. It found the Applicant’s repeated visits to Nepal indicated that he did not have a genuine fear of persecution there at any time.
The Tribunal also considered the Applicant’s claims about members of his family, but did not accept that they had experienced harassment, threats or other hardship as a result of his claims. Hence it rejected the specific claims the Applicant had made in that respect, including about the Maoists forcing his wife to stop working as a teacher or otherwise intimidating, questioning or bothering her or that she was subject to a home invasion in January 2012 or that she and the children were “now moving around, essentially in hiding”. The Tribunal was “confident that the applicant had fabricated the home invasion [claim] to bolster his application”.
The Tribunal found there was no real chance of the Applicant coming to the adverse attention of the Maoists, the YCL or anyone else if he returned to Nepal. It did not accept that he had any interest in the Nepalese Congress Party or any other political group and found that he would not engage in any relevant political activity. Nor did it accept that there was a real chance of the Maoists having an adverse interest in the Applicant in the reasonably foreseeable future, including for any perception he might have earned money abroad. Hence the Tribunal found it unnecessary to consider whether there was a Convention nexus to such claims. The Tribunal was not satisfied the Applicant had a well-founded fear of Convention-related persecution now or in the reasonably foreseeable future if he returned to Nepal.
The Tribunal also considered the issue of complementary protection, but was not satisfied on the information before it that there were substantial grounds to believe that as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of the Applicant’s removal to Nepal there would be a real risk he would suffer significant harm. It affirmed the decision of the delegate.
The Applicant sought review by application filed in this Court on 27 June 2012. There are three grounds in the application. The Applicant did not file any affidavit evidence other than the initial affidavit attaching his Tribunal decision. He did not file written submissions but had the opportunity to make oral submissions.
The first ground of review is that the decision “was made on speculation and based on findings”. As the solicitor for the First Respondent pointed out, this ground is somewhat lacking in clarity. Insofar as the Applicant (in this or in any of the other grounds or in his oral submissions) takes issue with the factual findings of the Tribunal and seeks merits review, the Court cannot review the merits of the Tribunal decision in proceedings of this nature (see Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Wu Shan Liang and Others (1996) 185 CLR 259 at 272; [1996] HCA 6).
In oral submissions the Applicant suggested that the Tribunal had no genuine reason why it concluded that the documents he submitted were not genuine or fake. It may be that in ground one the Applicant intended to assert that the Tribunal could not know or had not established certain matters, in particular, that his evidence was untrue in some respects or that documents he provided were not genuine. He also appeared to take issue with what he thought was a reason for the Tribunal’s decision being that the political situation in Nepal was much improved and hence that he could return.
Such contentions misunderstand the nature of the Tribunal’s role and its powers. It is not for the Tribunal to disprove the claims of the Applicant (see s.65 of the Act). It is for the Applicant to advance whatever evidence or argument he wishes to advance in support of his claim that he has a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason. The Tribunal must then decide whether that claim is made out on the basis of such evidence and arguments (see Dranichnikov v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (2003) 77 ALJR 1088; [2003] HCA 26 and NABE v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (No 2) (2004) 144 FCR 1; [2004] FCAFC 263).
It has not been established that the Tribunal failed to carry out its review or in some way erred in the manner in which it proceeded. Insofar as the Applicant appeared to be raising an issue as to whether the Tribunal should have, in some sense, gone further in its review, perhaps by making inquiries, there is no general duty on the Tribunal to make inquiries (see Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZGUR and Another (2011) 241 CLR 594; [2011] HCA 1). It has not been established that this is a case of the nature considered in Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZIAI (2009) 83 ALJR 1123; [2009] HCA 39 in which there could be said to have been a failure to make an obvious inquiry about a critical fact the existence of which was easily ascertained such as to supply a sufficient nexus to the outcome that such a failure to inquire could constitute a failure to review or, indeed, manifest a jurisdictional error in some other way.
The Applicant appeared to take issue with the Tribunal approach to his documentation. He suggested that it might assist the Court to see the originals of the documents he had provided to the Tribunal. However it is not for this Court to make a determination about the genuineness of his documentation. Having regard to the Tribunal’s reasoning in relation to his documentation, it cannot be said that anything that is apparent on the face of what he says are the original documents would be of relevance in relation to a determination of whether the Tribunal fell into jurisdictional error.
The Applicant referred to watermarks on the documents. At the Tribunal hearing the Tribunal raised with him that the documents he had provided had unusual brown stains on them. The Applicant was recorded as indicating that he might have the main originals at home. At the Tribunal’s suggestion he expressed interest in forwarding them to the Tribunal together with the envelope his wife had used to send them to him. He provided such documents to the Tribunal after the hearing. There is nothing in the Tribunal reasons for decision that makes anything of the stains on the documents. It was clearly open to the Tribunal to reach the conclusions that it did. It had specific concerns about the documentation said to be written by local authorities and the Nepalese NGO (not about the source of such documents) and also about the letters of demand, including making the point that it was not possible for it to verify whether those letters appeared on genuine Maoist stationery or the circumstances in which they were written. There was no suggestion of any person to whom enquiries may be made in relation to the letters of demand and no evidence that the Applicant sought that the Tribunal should in some way verify the source of such letters.
The Tribunal proceeded on the basis that the other documents were from the named sources, but found the contents were unreliable or did not corroborate the specifics of the Applicant’s claims.
For the reasons given, the Applicant’s general concerns about the Tribunal’s treatment of the supporting documents are not such as to establish jurisdictional error.
I note for the benefit of the Applicant that insofar as he now complains that while original documents were returned to him by the Tribunal, the envelope he obtained from Nepal was not returned, this is not a matter for resolution by the Court but may be a matter that he can raise with the Tribunal. It is not in any way indicative of jurisdictional error.
Ground one in the application for review as expressed and as elaborated on in oral submissions is not made out.
Ground two in the application is “personal interest and family circumstances were ignored.” Insofar as this may be taken to assert that the Tribunal failed to have regard to any integers of the Applicant’s claim, such a claim is not made out.
The Tribunal considered the claims made by the Applicant about past events, including his claims about his family’s circumstances and events he claimed were experienced by his family. It rejected, relevantly, the claims of the Applicant relating to the alleged harassment of, threats to or hardship suffered by members of his family. More generally, the Tribunal reached an adverse credibility finding based on a number of matters of concern which it addressed in detail. The Tribunal’s findings in that respect were open to it on the material before it for the reasons which it gave. Credibility findings are a matter for the Tribunal and there is nothing in the circumstances of this case to suggest reviewable error on the evidence before the Court.
Insofar as ground two challenges the factual findings and seeks merits review, again merits review is not available in this Court.
Insofar as the Applicant appeared to take issue with what he thought was the basis for the Tribunal’s decision (relating to improvements in the situation in Nepal) that was not the basis for the Tribunal decision. Moreover, while the Applicant made a number of relatively specific claims about particular past events he claimed he and his family had experienced, this was not a case in which the Tribunal accepted that such past events had occurred as claimed but found that the situation had changed in that circumstances had improved so that on that basis the Applicant had no well-founded fear of persecution. Rather, the Tribunal did not accept the credibility of the Applicant’s claims about past events and saw no basis in the evidence for there otherwise to be a well-founded fear of Convention-related persecution in the future.
Ground two is not made out.
Ground three is expressed in terms which conventionally fall within a category of jurisdictional error, insofar as it is stated, “Interpreter appointed by the RRT in Nepali language was unclear and misleading”. It is the case that there are, as the First Respondent conceded, circumstances in which the Tribunal will fail to meet its obligation under s.425 of the Migration Act, as considered by Mansfield and Selway JJ in Appellant P119/2002 v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs [2003] FCAFC 230. Such principles which have been applied in subsequent cases (see for example WALN v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2006] FCAFC 131).
However if an Applicant wishes to make out such a claim he or she must establish either that the standard of interpretation at the Tribunal hearing was so inadequate that he was effectively prevented from giving evidence at the hearing or that particular errors made by the interpreter at the hearing were material to the conclusions of the Tribunal adverse to the Applicant. As pointed out in WACO v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2003) 131 FCR 511; [2003] FCAFC 171 perfect translation is not required.
However the difficulty that faces the Applicant in this case is that (however the test is expressed) there is simply no evidence before the Court to suggest either any errors of interpretation or an inadequate standard of interpretation. The Applicant made assertions in general terms to that effect from the bar table, but the only evidence before the Court of what occurred in the Tribunal hearing is the Tribunal reasons for decision.
The Applicant did not take the opportunity afforded by the directions made at the directions hearing to file an affidavit including a transcript of the Tribunal hearing. The Tribunal’s account of what occurred at the hearing is not such as to suggest misunderstanding or mistranslation such as to establish or even suggest a failure to comply with s.425 of the Act by reason of inadequate translation on the part of the interpreter. There is no suggestion in the Tribunal’s account of the hearing that there were any difficulties in interpretation experienced at the hearing. There is not sufficient evidence to draw any inference to that effect.
The general concerns expressed by the Applicant that the interpreter could not express what the Applicant wanted to express and that there may have been some misunderstanding does not establish a jurisdictional error in the manner explained in Appellant P119/2002.
Ground three is not made out.
As none of the grounds relied on by the Applicant have been established, the application must be dismissed.
The Applicant has been unsuccessful. There is nothing in the circumstances of this case to warrant a departure from the normal principle that the unsuccessful Applicant should meet the costs of the First Respondent. The Minister seeks costs in the sum of $5,500 pointing out that Schedule 1 to the Federal Magistrates Court Rules provides for an amount that is some $1,000 more than this. However, doing as best I can on the evidence before me, having regard to the nature of this matter and other similar matters, the issues raised and the scope of the matter, I am of the view that a reasonable and appropriate amount is the sum of $5,000.
I certify that the preceding fifty-nine (59) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for judgment of Barnes FM.
Date: 14 March 2013
0
11
1