Khatter v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural Affairs

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT 1 This is an application for an order of review of a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal ("RRT") affirming the decision of a delegate of the respondent Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs not to grant protection visas to Khattar Emel Khatter ("the applicant husband") and Nadia Mikhail Shaker Hanna ("the applicant wife"). 2 The applicants are husband and wife and citizens of Egypt. The applicant husband arrived in Australia on 16 September 1996. On 5 November 1996 he lodged an application for a protection (class AZ) visa with the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs under the Migration Act 1958 ("the Act"). The applicant wife arrived in Australia in January 1997. On 21 January 1998 the applicant wife lodged a protection visa application, including the applicant husband as a member of the family unit. She completed part D of the application which is for a member of the family unit "who does not have their own claims to be a refugee". On 22 January 1998 a delegate of the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs refused to grant protection visas, and on 25 February 1998 the applicants applied for review of that decision by the RRT. The adverse decision of the RRT was made on 24 May 2000 and was communicated to the applicants on 7 June 2000.

decision of rrt 3 The essence of the reasoning of the RRT was as follows: 1. The applicants, as Coptic Christians, had suffered harassment over the years, which did not reach the level of persecution. 2. The harassment reached levels amounting to persecution because of a sexual relationship between the applicant husband and a Muslim woman. 3. That although some Coptic Christians in Egypt do suffer some degree of harassment and disadvantage, this was not general and did not amount to persecution. There was no finding of any persecution on the part of the Egyptian authorities. 4. That as the serious harassment amounting to persecution of the applicants was essentially a local matter, the applicants could settle in to other parts of Egypt and so avoid persecution. 4 The application for review is dated 5 July 2000, and the grounds were: "The Grounds of the Application are: