SZTAT v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection

[2015] HCASL 51

SZTAT

v

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND BORDER PROTECTION & ANOR

[2015] HCASL 51
S308/2014

1. The applicant is a national of Bangladesh.  He applied for a Protection (Class XA) visa claiming he feared harm in Bangladesh due to his involvement with the Bangladesh National Party.  A delegate of the first respondent refused his application.

2. On 13 June 2013, the delegate's decision was affirmed by the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal"), to which the matter had been remitted by the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia after judicial review of an earlier decision by the Tribunal.  The Tribunal's assessment of the applicant's credibility led it to find that the applicant's account of events was false and there was no credible evidence that he was at risk of harm or had a well-founded fear of persecution in Bangladesh.  The Tribunal did not give evidentiary weight to documents produced by the applicant, in light of country information regarding document fraud in Bangladesh. It declined to inquire into the documents' veracity, as its findings that the applicant was untruthful and the concerns about his credibility could not be outweighed by those documents.

3. On 4 July 2014, the Federal Circuit Court of Australia (Emmett J) dismissed an application for judicial review, holding that the Tribunal's decision was open to it on the evidence before it.  In the view of her Honour, the Tribunal was not obliged to investigate the sources of the applicant's documents nor was it necessary to do so, for even if the documents were genuine, they could not outweigh the findings made by the Tribunal as to the applicant's credibility.

4. On 24 November 2014, the Federal Court of Australia (Barker J) dismissed the appeal.  Barker J found there was no basis for the applicant's ground of appeal and was unable to identify relevant jurisdictional error in the decision-making of the Tribunal.

5. The applicant seeks special leave to appeal to this Court.  The applicant has not identified any question of law that would justify the grant of special leave and there is no reason to doubt the correctness of the Federal Court decision.  An appeal to this Court enjoys no prospects of success.  Special leave is refused.

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
9 April 2015 P.A. Keane