Ground 1
13 The first ground of appeal advanced by the appellant is that the primary judge erred by failing to find that the Tribunal did not comply with s 425(1) of the Act. Section 425(1) of the Act states that the Tribunal must invite the applicant to appear before the Tribunal to give evidence and present arguments relating to the issues arising in relation to the decision under review. In support of his submissions the appellant referred to SZBEL v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2006) 228 CLR 152 ("SZBEL").
14 In SZBEL the High Court was concerned with an application for a protection visa made by a seaman employed by an Iranian shipping company. In support of his application the seaman made a statutory declaration in which he explained that he jumped ship in Port Kembla because his captain knew of his interest in the Christian religion and that this led him to fear for his safety. His application for a protection visa was refused by a delegate of the Minister on the basis that he had not satisfied the delegate that he had "a genuine commitment to Christianity." In particular, the delegate did not consider that the seaman's decision to return to his ship on a prior occasion was consistent with the actions of a person who feared being mistreated or killed by other crew due to his interest in Christianity.
15 There were other important elements in the seaman's account of events that were not referred to in the delegate's reasons. In particular, the delegate's reasons made no mention of the seaman's additional claims that he met with friends in his home town and discussed with them his interest in Christianity or that he was called before his captain to explain this interest. These additional claims, which were not dealt with by the delegate, were rejected by the Tribunal as implausible. It was against that background that the High Court quashed the Tribunal's decision on the ground that the Tribunal did not afford the seaman procedural fairness in accordance with s 425(1) of the Act.
16 The High Court said at [32]-[35]:
[32] In Commissioner for Australian Capital Territory Revenue v Alphaone Pty Ltd (1994) 49 FCR 576 the Full Court rightly said (27):
"It is a fundamental principle that where the rules of procedural fairness apply to a decision-making process, the party liable to be directly affected by the decision is to be given the opportunity of being heard. That would ordinarily require the party affected to be given the opportunity of ascertaining the relevant issues and to be informed of the nature and content of adverse material."
(Emphasis added.)
[33] The Act defines the nature of the opportunity to be heard that is to be given to an applicant for review by the Tribunal. The applicant is to be invited "to give evidence and present arguments relating to the issues arising in relation to the decision under review" (s 425(1) (emphasis added)). The reference to "the issues arising in relation to the decision under review" is important.
[34] Those issues will not be sufficiently identified in every case by describing them simply as whether the applicant is entitled to a protection visa. The statutory language "arising in relation to the decision under review" is more particular. The issues arising in relation to a decision under review are to be identified having regard not only to the fact that the Tribunal may exercise (s 415) all the powers and discretions conferred by the Act on the original decision-maker (here, the Minister's delegate), but also to the fact that the Tribunal is to review that particular decision, for which the decision-maker will have given reasons.
[35] The Tribunal is not confined to whatever may have been the issues that the delegate considered. The issues that arise in relation to the decision are to be identified by the Tribunal. But if the Tribunal takes no step to identify some issue other than those that the delegate considered dispositive, and does not tell the applicant what that other issue is, the applicant is entitled to assume that the issues the delegate considered dispositive are "the issues arising in relation to the decision under review". That is why the point at which to begin the identification of issues arising in relation to the decision under review will usually be the reasons given for that decision. And unless some other additional issues are identified by the Tribunal (as they may be), it would ordinarily follow that, on review by the Tribunal, the issues arising in relation to the decision under review would be those which the original decision-maker identified as determinative against the applicant.
(Emphasis original)
17 In relation to the particular matters upon which the Tribunal relied in refusing the seaman's application for review, the High Court said at [43]:
The delegate had not based his decision on either of these aspects of the matter. Nothing in the delegate's reasons for decision indicated that these aspects of his account were in issue. And the Tribunal did not identify these aspects of his account as important issues. The Tribunal did not challenge what the appellant said. It did not say anything to him that would have revealed to him that these were live issues. Based on what the delegate had decided, the appellant would, and should, have understood the central and determinative question on the review to be the nature and extent of his Christian commitment. Nothing the Tribunal said or did added to the issues that arose on the review.
The Court held at [44] that the Tribunal did not accord the appellant procedural fairness as it did not give the appellant "a sufficient opportunity to give evidence, or make submissions, about what turned out to be two of the three determinative issues arising in relation to the decision under review."
18 Two other general points made by the High Court are also relevant to this appeal. The Court said at [47]-[48]:
[47] First, there may well be cases, perhaps many cases, where either the delegate's decision, or the Tribunal's statements or questions during a hearing, sufficiently indicate to an applicant that everything he or she says in support of the application is in issue. That indication may be given in many ways. It is not necessary (and often would be inappropriate) for the Tribunal to put to an applicant, in so many words, that he or she is lying, that he or she may not be accepted as a witness of truth, or that he or she may be thought to be embellishing the account that is given of certain events. The proceedings are not adversarial and the Tribunal is not, and is not to adopt the position of, a contradictor. But where, as here, there are specific aspects of an applicant's account, that the Tribunal considers may be important to the decision and may be open to doubt, the Tribunal must at least ask the applicant to expand upon those aspects of the account and ask the applicant to explain why the account should be accepted.
[48] Secondly, as Lord Diplock said in F Hoffmann-La Roche & Co AG v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry [[1975] AC 295 at 369],
"the rules of natural justice do not require the decision maker to disclose what he is minded to decide so that the parties may have a further opportunity of criticising his mental processes before he reaches a final decision. If this were a rule of natural justice only the most talkative of judges would satisfy it and trial by jury would have to be abolished."
Procedural fairness does not require the Tribunal to give an applicant a running commentary upon what it thinks about the evidence that is given. On the contrary, to adopt such a course would be likely to run a serious risk of conveying an impression of prejudgment.
(Emphasis original)
19 Mr Tully, counsel for the appellant, submitted that SZBEL at [35] recognises that issues may change during the course of a review and the Tribunal is under an obligation to put new issues to an applicant for review if it considers that the issue was not one the delegate identified as determinative against the applicant.
20 Mr Tully submitted that whether or not the appellant feared harm from ISIS, Daesh or affiliated groups was an issue not considered by the delegate but was a matter first raised in the Tribunal. He submitted that the Tribunal failed to provide the appellant with an opportunity to be heard in relation to this issue.
21 Mr Reilly, counsel for the Minister, submitted that there is nothing in SZBEL that requires the Tribunal to raise with an applicant every detail of his or her submissions for comment or expansion and that it is for the appellant to put to the Tribunal whatever submissions he wished in support of his case (citing Abebe v Commonwealth (1999) 197 CLR 510 ("Abebe") at [187] per Gummow and Hayne JJ). He submitted that there was no breach of s 425 of the Act in this case and thus the first ground of appeal should be rejected.
22 It is clear from the Tribunal's reasons and the transcript of the Tribunal hearing that the Tribunal provided the appellant with an opportunity to be heard in relation his fear of harm from ISIS, Daesh or affiliated groups and he was aware they were relevant to the determination of his application. The transcript of the Tribunal hearing shows that the appellant was given an opportunity to expand upon his pre-hearing submission. The appellant and his representative made statements to the Tribunal during the course of the hearing explaining why it was not safe for him to return to Afghanistan.
23 During the hearing the Tribunal raised with the appellant and his representative a report relating to the security situation in Afghanistan suggesting that violence in Kabul was mostly targeted at government officials and that the risk to the civilian population in Kabul province was "relatively low". After the appellant had responded (through an interpreter), the Tribunal asked the appellant's representative whether "there was anything you thought we hadn't covered?" He answered that there was nothing he thought had not been covered. Later, toward the end of the hearing, the appellant was also asked whether there was anything more that he wanted to say before the close of the hearing. He then made a further statement in which he explained that Afghanistan was not safe and that he felt he would be in danger there.
24 In Abebe Gummow and Hayne JJ said at [187]:
The want of procedural fairness was said to lie in the Tribunal not putting to the applicant any suggestion that her story of detention and rape was untrue. Framed in this way, the submission may, perhaps, assume that proceedings before the Tribunal are adversarial rather than inquisitorial or that in some way the Tribunal is in the position of a contradictor of a case being made by the applicant. Such assumptions, if made, would be wrong. The proceedings before the Tribunal are inquisitorial and the Tribunal is not in the position of a contradictor. It is for the applicant to advance whatever evidence or argument she wishes to advance in support of her contention that she has a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason. The Tribunal must then decide whether that claim is made out.
25 The threat to the appellant's safety posed by ISIS, Daesh or affiliated groups was first raised by the appellant in his pre-hearing submission to the Tribunal. There is no suggestion that the appellant was denied the opportunity to be heard in relation to that matter because he did not understand it would be a matter that the Tribunal would wish to consider. What happened here is that the appellant was in fact heard on the relevant issue by way of his pre-hearing submission but that, for whatever reason, he chose not to expand or elaborate upon that submission. In my opinion, there was no denial of procedural fairness or any breach of s 425(1) of the Act.