Applicant S328 of 2003 v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT 1. On 6 July 2000, the Refugee Review Tribunal ("RRT") affirmed a decision made by the respondent not to grant the applicant a protection visa under the Migration Act 1958 (Cth). 2. The applicant filed an application for order nisi in the High Court of Australia on 18 June 2003 seeking the issue of constitutional writs. The application was remitted to this Court pursuant to orders made by Gaudron J, as varied by McHugh J, following the delivery of judgment in Muin v The Refugee Review Tribunal (2002) 76 ALJR 966 ("Muin"). 3. By correspondence dated 12 November 2004, the District Registrar of the Court advised the applicant that the court proposed to consider whether there is an arguable case for the making of an order nisi on the basis of the written material before the court. The applicant was invited to file written submissions, and did so on 6 December 2004. 4. I propose to deal with this application on the papers.

Background 5. The applicant is a citizen of Bangladesh. He claims a well founded fear of persecution because he was a well known political activist involved in the student wing of the Natore District Committee of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ("BNP"), and that he was targeted by the Awami League. 6. In its reasons for decision, the RRT accepted that the applicant was a member of the BNP and may have been the target of violence by members of an opposing student group in 1993, as violence between student groups was common in Bangladesh. However, the RRT did not accept that the applicant's relatively minor political role would have caused him to be targeted by the Awami League, nor that he would still be of interest to them for these activities. The RRT concluded that the applicant did not have a well-founded fear of persecution.