SZUYT v Minister for Immigration

This decision concerned an application by SZUYT (the applicant) for judicial review of a decision made by the Migration Review Tribunal. The applicant challenged the Tribunal's findings regarding credibility, specifically its rejection of the applicant's explanation for discrepancies between two statements provided to the Tribunal. The court was required to determine whether the Tribunal's findings constituted a jurisdictional error.

The legal issues before the court included whether the Tribunal's rejection of the applicant's explanation for the differing statements was irrational, and whether the Tribunal erred in relying on the applicant's failure to complain about his lawyer's conduct. The court also considered the principles of jurisdictional error in the context of irrationality, drawing on High Court authority, particularly *Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZMDS*, which established that irrationality sufficient to give rise to jurisdictional error must mean a decision that no rational decision-maker could arrive at on the same evidence, and that such error must fix upon the decision-maker's satisfaction regarding the criteria for granting a visa.

The court reasoned that the applicant's submission that he had provided a reasonable explanation for the statement discrepancies merely expressed disagreement with the Tribunal's assessment, thus inviting impermissible merits review. Furthermore, the court found it reasonably open to the Tribunal to rely on the applicant's lack of complaint about his lawyer's conduct as a basis for not accepting his explanation, as it aligns with ordinary human experience that wronged individuals typically complain. The court also held that it was reasonably open to the Tribunal to conclude that claims made in the April statement were concocted, as a person with knowledge of such claims would ordinarily include them in an earlier statement if they were true, absent a reasonable explanation.

The court dismissed the applicant's submissions, finding no jurisdictional error in the Tribunal's credibility findings.