ABH18 v Minister for Home Affairs
[2020] FCA 620
At a glance
Source factsCourt
Federal Court of Australia
Decision date
2020-05-11
Before
Charlesworth J
Source
Original judgment source is linked above.
Judgment (8 paragraphs)
- The appeal is dismissed. Note: Entry of orders is dealt with in Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.
CHARLESWORTH J: 1 This is an appeal from a judgment of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia (FCCA). The primary judge dismissed an application for judicial review of a decision of the Immigration Assessment Authority to affirm a decision of the first respondent Minister to refuse to grant the appellant a Safe Haven Enterprise (subclass 790) visa (SHEV) under the Migration Act 1958 (Cth): see ABH18 v Minister for Home Affairs & Anor [2019] FCCA 1112. 2 The appeal should be dismissed for the reasons given below.
THE VISA APPLICATioN 3 For the appellant to be eligible for the SHEV it was necessary that he fulfil one of the alternate criteria in s 36(2) of the Act. It relevantly provides: (2) A criterion for a protection visa is that the applicant for the visa is: (a) a non-citizen in Australia in respect of whom the Minister is satisfied Australia has protection obligations because the person is a refugee; or (aa) a non-citizen in Australia (other than a non-citizen mentioned in paragraph (a)) in respect of whom the Minister is satisfied Australia has protection obligations because the Minister has substantial grounds for believing that, as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of the non-citizen being removed from Australia to a receiving country, there is a real risk that the non-citizen will suffer significant harm; or … 4 The word "refugee" in s 36(2)(a) is defined in s 5H of the Act: 5H Meaning of refugee (1) For the purposes of the application of this Act and the regulations to a particular person in Australia, the person is a refugee if the person: (a) in a case where the person has a nationality - is outside the country of his or her nationality and, owing to a well-founded fear of persecution, is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country; or (b) in a case where the person does not have a nationality - is outside the country of his or her former habitual residence and owing to a well-founded fear of persecution, is unable or unwilling to return to it. 5 The appellant arrived in Australia on 14 November 2012. He is a Tamil from the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. 6 In support of his application for the SHEV, the appellant claimed that during the Sri Lankan civil war, two of his brothers were active members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). He claimed that his older brother was killed by the Karuna party in 2007 and that his younger brother had been jailed between 2008 and 2011, then re-arrested and jailed again. The appellant claimed that he and his family were forced to relocate a number of times during the civil war as a result of threats related to his brothers' involvement with the LTTE. He claimed that the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) frequently visited his family on suspicion that they were involved with the LTTE. He claimed that in 2012 he was arrested, detained by the CID and interrogated and beaten over five days about his brothers' connections. He claimed that after his release the CID frequently enquired about him at his place of work and that he had been placed on a CID watch list. He also claimed that the Sri Lankan police had attempted to force him to give false evidence in a theft trial and that when he refused to do so they threatened that he would be charged "in a different case" and put in jail. 7 The Minister's delegate accepted that the appellant's older brother had fought with the LTTE and was killed by the Karuna group in 2007, that the appellant and his family had been displaced on several occasions during the conflict, that his younger brother had joined the LTTE and had been involved in military action and had been detained and rearrested. The delegate also accepted that the appellant had been questioned and intimidated by unidentified men in 2012, that many in the appellants' village, including his family, were regarded as LTTE sympathisers, and that he had been visited by the police or CID at his workplace. However, the delegate did not accept that the appellant had been tortured, nor that he had been asked to give false evidence in a court case or threatened with arrest over a false charge. The delegate was not satisfied that the appellant remained on a CID watch list. The delegate concluded that the appellant "does not face a real chance of persecution on account of his connection to his brothers". 8 The delegate's decision to refuse the SHEV was automatically referred to the Authority for review under s 473CA of the Act.