SZSEI v Minister for Immigration

This matter concerned an application for a Protection visa. The applicant, SZSEI, appealed a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) to the Federal Court of Australia. The dispute centred on the RRT's assessment of evidence presented by the applicant in support of their claim for protection.

The legal issues before the Court were whether the RRT had made a jurisdictional error by failing to properly consider evidence that purportedly corroborated the applicant's claims, and the proper approach to assessing corroborating evidence in the context of Protection visa applications. Specifically, the Court considered whether the RRT could disregard corroborating evidence solely because it had made adverse credibility findings against the applicant, or if it was bound to consider such evidence regardless of its own assessment of the applicant's credibility.

The Court reasoned that "corroborate" means to strengthen. Corroborating evidence is that which tends to strengthen the evidence given by an applicant. While corroboration is not a technical term, case law indicates that corroborating evidence must typically be independent of the evidence it seeks to corroborate. The Court held that a tribunal commits jurisdictional error if it fails to consider corroborative material simply because it considers the applicant's claims unlikely, or because it has made adverse credibility findings. Such material must be considered, and its weight assessed in light of the applicant's credibility, unless there are cogent grounds to conclude the applicant has lied, or the corroborating material itself is found to be worthless. The Court referred to *WAIJ v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs* and *Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZNSP* in support of this reasoning.

The Court found that the RRT had made a jurisdictional error by failing to consider the second applicant's evidence. The matter was remitted to the RRT for redetermination according to law.