FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Ullah v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural Affairs [2000] FCA 1667

MOHAMMED QUADRAT ULLAH v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION

& MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS

N 860 OF 2000

EMMETT J

14 NOVEMBER 2000

SYDNEY

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1.         The application be dismissed.

2.         The applicant pay the respondent’s costs.

Note:    Settlement and entry of orders is dealt with in Order 36 of the Federal Court Rules.

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

1                     Mohammed Quadrat Ullah arrived in Australia on 26 September 1966, he carried a false passport issued in the name of Mozammel Hossain Minto.  He first applied for a protection visa on 18 October 1996.  On 10 July 1997 he withdrew the application, but on 29 August 1997 he lodged a new application.  Mr Ullah’s application was refused by a delegate of the respondent, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs on 2 February 1998 and he applied for a review of that decision by the Refugee Review Tribunal (“the Tribunal”) on 26 February 1998.  On 27 June 2000 the Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant a protection visa.

2                     On 9 August 2000 the applicant applied to this Court for an order or review of the Tribunal’s decision.  The grounds specified in the application are as follows:

“1.       That the Respondent exercised power under Section 431 of the Migration Act 1958 and decided that I am not a person to whom Australia has protection obligations under the Refugee Convention.

 2.        I certainly believe that the Department of Immigration as well as the Refugee Review Tribunal, has certainly made an error of law being an error involving an incorrect interpretation of the application of the law to the facts as found by the person who made the decision.”

The first purported ground does not raise any ground at all and the second simply repeats the language of s 476(1)(e). 

3                     In its reasons for 27 June 2000 the Tribunal set out at some length relevant background on Bangladesh.  The issue was whether the applicant was at serious risk of harm by the Government of Bangladesh or the members of the ruling Awami League Party if he returned to Bangladesh.  The Tribunal formulated the issue as whether Mr Ullah’s fear was well founded.  He asserted that his fear arose because of his activities as a member of the opposition Bangladesh National Party. 

4                     The Tribunal set out in considerable detail Mr Ullah’s claims and his evidence.  The Tribunal accepted that the applicant is as he claimed, namely Mohammed Quadrat Ullah, and that he is a citizen of Bangladesh.  However for reasons set out in some detail the Tribunal did not find the applicant to be a credible witness.  Four reasons were set out:

1.         He did not give his evidence during the hearing before the Tribunal in a forthright or convincing manner;

2.         The Tribunal considered that a number of Mr Ullah’s claims were implausible;

3.         Mr Ullah, according to the Tribunal, gave contradictory evidence regarding the circumstances of the murder of an Awami League Ward Commissioner in May 1996;

4.         The Tribunal found that Mr Ullah’s decision to withdraw his protection visa application in July 1997 was an indication that he did not genuinely fear persecution in Bangladesh at that time.

5                     The Tribunal considered that the evidence given by the applicant concerning withdrawal of that application was inconsistent.  The Tribunal, after considering all of the evidence, did not accept that Mr Ullah was a leading member of the Jatiyabadi Chhatra Dal (“JCD”) as he claimed.  The Tribunal accepted that Mr Ullah might have had some involvement with the JCD but did not believe that he fears he will be persecuted because of those activities in the reasonably foreseeable future.  After considering the evidence as a whole the Tribunal was not satisfied that Mr Ullah is someone to whom Australia has protection obligations under the Refugees Convention. 

6                     Pursuant to directions that I gave when the matter first came before me, the applicant made submissions in writing.  In those submissions he said that he strongly disputed the decision of the Department as well as the Tribunal and asserted that he believed that the Department and the Tribunal had incorrectly assessed his application.  Mr Ullah pointed out that the Tribunal recorded the violence on Bangladesh politics as being part of political practice in that country.  He also drew attention to the fact that the decision-maker indicated that the United States Department of State had reported in 1998 that political violence in Bangladesh often involves criminality. 

7                     Mr Ullah said that he had clearly mentioned in his statutory declaration and oral statements his fears and had submitted an enormous amount of documentation in relation to his fears of persecution upon return to Bangladesh.  He said that in the light of the fact that the delegate and the Tribunal acknowledged the extent of his fears, an obvious question arose as to how his application was refused without giving any specific gravity to his claims of persecution upon return to Bangladesh.

8                     Mr Ullah in his written submission then set out a number of propositions consistent with the decisions of the High Court in Chan Yee Kin v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (1989) 169 CLR 379,  Applicant A v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (1997) 190 CLR 225 and Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Guo (1997) 191 CLR 559.  The propositions set out appear to me to be correct.  However no attempt was made in the submission to demonstrate how the reasoning of the Tribunal fell foul of those propositions.  There does not appear to me to be any error of law in the reasoning of the Tribunal.

9                     While I understand Mr Ullah’s sense of frustration at the non-acceptance of his position by the Tribunal, he has not in my view demonstrated any error of law within the meaning of s 476(1)(e) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth).  It follows in my view that the application should be dismissed, with costs.

Associate:

Dated:              18 November 2000