Ahmed v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural Affairs

BEAUMONT J: 1 This is an application by an applicant in person in a migration matter. The history of the issues that are now before the Court are recounted in the affidavit of Mr Peek. They are relevantly as follows: · The applicant arrived in Australia on 26 December 1997 on a South African passport issued in the name Ali Hassan, to whom a visitor's visa had been issued. He was detained under s 189 of the Migration Act 1958 ("the Act") on 13 February 1998 after he was found to be working in contravention of the conditions of the visitor's visa, which was cancelled under ss 116(1)(b) and (f) of the Act on 17 February 1998. · The applicant applied for a protection visa on 26 February 1998, which was refused on 31 March 1998. This decision was affirmed by the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal") on 20 May 1998. An application to this Court for review of that decision was dismissed on 30 October 1998. · The applicant has made numerous applications to the respondent for a bridging visa. All applications were refused. Most of these decisions were challenged in the Tribunal, which affirmed them.

2 In an application for an order of review filed by the applicant on 11 March 1999, the applicant sought judicial review of, relevantly, a decision of the Tribunal given on that day. 3 By that decision, the Tribunal affirmed its decision by a delegate of the Minister on 18 February 1999 to refuse a Bridging E visa to the applicant. A Bridging E visa is described in the Migration Regulations by reference, relevantly, to sub-class 050 (bridging visa). 4 Under sub-class 050, the Migration Regulations specify that all applicants must satisfy the primary criteria there specified. Relevantly, those criteria include the following: "(2) An applicant meets the requirements of this sub-clause if the Minister is satisfied that the applicant is making, or is the subject of, acceptable arrangements to depart Australia." [050.212] 5 In its decision, the Tribunal, after describing a history of a series of previous applications to the Tribunal, said: "The Tribunal indicated at the hearing that the question of whether Mr Ahmed gets a Bridging visa is a very difficult one. He has had a long history in Australia of attempting to stay within the confines of this country and he has shown a rigorous adherence to the notion that he does not wish to be returned to Pakistan. On the one hand the Tribunal is concerned about the length of time that he has been in custody, however, this has largely been of his own decision making. The Tribunal is concerned that if he is released from detention without any application for a substantive visa being in train, then there is little likelihood that he would be concerned that he would have anything to lose if he did not adhere to the conditions of release. Because he has had many applications refused, he may be thought to have a pessimistic view about the outcome of any applications, at this stage, within the migration system. The Tribunal indicated these matters to the Applicant and his advisors. The Tribunal considered that, in the public interest, given the long history of the relationship between Mr Ahmed and the Department and given the serious concerns that he has previously expressed, in terms of reservations about returning to Pakistan and the fact that he has no clear path to obtaining a substantive visa in Australia, that it would be very difficult to be satisfied that he would comply with reasonable conditions of release.