FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

SZCLA v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2005] FCA 1376

SZCLA v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS AND REFUGEE REVIEW TRIBUNAL

NSD 1181 OF 2005

MOORE J

12 SEPTEMBER 2005

SYDNEY

ON APPEAL FROM THE FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1.  The appeal be dismissed.

2.  The appellant pay the first respondent's costs.

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

ON APPEAL FROM THE FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

1                     This is an appeal from a judgment of a Federal Magistrate of 30 June 2005 dismissing an application for judicial review of a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal") of 24 November 2003.  The appellant is a national of India and arrived in Australia on 9 January 2003.  Shortly thereafter he applied to the Department for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs for a protection visa.  A delegate of the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs rejected that application and that decision was affirmed by the Tribunal. 

2                     Briefly, the claims of the appellant founding his application for a protection visa were as follows.  The appellant was a Sikh and a member of the All Indian Sikh Students' Federation.  He claimed to have been detained and tortured on three occasions between 1989 and 1992 and on two later occasions between 1996 and 1998.  He also made claims about other incidents more recent in origin which, together with the other incidents, gave rise to what he said was a well founded fear of persecution were he to return to India.  Those claims were considered by the Tribunal which, in substance, did not believe his account of what had occurred to him in India.  Nothing appears to have been identified in the proceedings before the Federal Magistrate, nor identified in this appeal, which would suggest that in reaching that conclusion the Tribunal fell into jurisdictional error. 

3                     I have read both the reasons for decision of the Tribunal and the judgment of the Federal Magistrate.  The former appear unexceptionable and the latter appears to be correct.  In my view, the Federal Magistrate did not err in concluding that the appellant had not made out jurisdictional error on the part of the Tribunal and that his application should be dismissed.  The appropriate order is that the appeal be dismissed with costs.

Associate:

Dated:              26 September 2005