SZTBE v Minister for Immigration & Border Protection

The applicant, SZTBE, sought judicial review of a decision by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection to refuse to grant a protection visa. The dispute concerned whether the applicant had established a well-founded fear of persecution for a reason specified in the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth).

The primary legal issue before Emmett J was whether the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) had erred in law in its assessment of the applicant's claims. Specifically, the court was required to determine if the RRT had failed to adequately consider all relevant evidence, including the applicant's subjective fear and the objective country information, when assessing the likelihood of persecution.

Emmett J found that the RRT had failed to properly engage with the applicant's evidence regarding his fear of being targeted by a particular group in his country of origin. The Tribunal's reasoning did not sufficiently explain why it discounted certain aspects of the applicant's testimony or why it considered the objective country information to be determinative over the applicant's personal experience. The court reiterated the principle that a subjective fear, if genuinely held and reasonably apprehended, can be sufficient to establish a well-founded fear, even if the objective evidence does not definitively prove the existence of persecution. The decision of the RRT was set aside, and the matter was remitted to the RRT for redetermination according to law.