QAAE of 2002 v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs
[2002] FCA 1213
At a glance
Source factsCourt
Federal Court of Australia
Decision date
2002-10-01
Before
Cooper J
Source
Original judgment source is linked above.
Judgment (3 paragraphs)
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT 1 The applicant arrived in Australia in November 1999. He lodged an application for a Protection (Class XA) visa under the provisions of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) ("the Act") on 3 December 1999. The application was refused by the delegate of the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs ("the Minister") on 18 April 2000. 2 The applicant applied to the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the RRT") for review of the delegate's decision. That decision was affirmed by the RRT on 27 March 2002 and the applicant applied to this Court for review on 10 May 2002. 3 The applicant is a self-represented litigant in these proceedings. 4 The application seeks a review of three decisions. They are claimed to be : (a) a decision of the Minister not to grant a protection visa; (b) a decision of the Minister not to grant a visa under the "Stateless Persons Convention"; (c) a decision of the Minister not to grant working rights for the period of judicial review. 5 The grounds stated in the application are : (a) the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs ("the Department") made a decision on 18 April 2000 relying on a document described as "CX40319", which is said to be fraudulent; (b) the Department rejected the grant of a visa under the "Convention for Stateless Persons"; (c) the Minister's decision not to grant working rights for the period of judicial review breaches the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; (d) the decision of the RRT not to grant a protection visa was based in bad faith. 6 The application does not in terms seek judicial review of the decision of the RRT, although the grounds relied upon contend that the RRT decision was made in bad faith. 7 The material filed in support of the application does not identify any application for a visa being made under the "Convention for Stateless Persons", nor for permission to work pending judicial review of the decision to refuse a protection visa, having been made or refused at the time the application for judicial review was filed in this Court. 8 There is some material to which the applicant referred touching on later applications of the applicant to the Minister made by letter dated 20 May 2002 and to the Department on 13 August 2002. I will deal with this material later in these reasons. 9 Whether it is contended that the Minister or the Department was obliged to treat his application for a protection visa also as an application for a visa under the "Convention for Stateless Persons" and as an application to be granted working rights pending judicial review of the refusal of a visa, is unclear. In the result, the only two identifiable decisions at the time the application for judicial review was filed in this Court were the decision of the delegate of 18 April 2000 and the decision of the RRT given on 27 March 2002. 10 The decision of the Minister, or more correctly the decision of the delegate made on 18 April 2000, in respect of which the applicant seeks judicial review is a "privative clause decision" within the meaning of s 474(2) of the Act. The decision to refuse the application for a protection visa is a decision of the type provided for under s 65 of the Act: s 474(3)(a) and (g). 11 The decision of the delegate of the Minister to refuse to grant a protection visa has been reviewed by the RRT under and in accordance with the provisions of the Act. It is therefore a "primary decision" within the meaning of s 476(6) of the Act. This Court has no jurisdiction in respect of a primary decision as defined: s 476(1). Accordingly, this Court has no jurisdiction to undertake judicial review of the decision made on 18 April 2000 to refuse the applicant's application for a protection visa. 12 On the hearing of the application, the respondent was content to treat it as one to seek judicial review of the decision of the RRT and to proceed accordingly. 13 The decision of the RRT given on 27 March 2002 to affirm the decision of the delegate of the Minister to refuse the applicant a protection visa, is a "privative clause decision" to which s 474 of the Act applies. 14 Section 474(1) of the Act provides : "(1) A privative clause decision: (a) is final and conclusive; and (b) must not be challenged, appealed against, reviewed, quashed or called in question in any court; and (c) is not subject to prohibition, mandamus, injunction, declaration or certiorari in any court on any account." 15 The apparent blanket prohibition from judicial review of privative clause decisions provided for in s 474(1) is subject to conditions identified by Dixon J in R v Hickman; ex parte Fox and Clinton (1945) 70 CLR 598 at 615: see the decision of a Full Court of this Court in NAAV v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2002] FCAFC 228 at [9], [10], [104], [281], [298], [499] - [500], [612]. Those conditions are that : (a) the decision is a bona fide attempt to exercise the power; (b) the decision relates to the subject matter of the legislation; (c) the decision is reasonably capable of reference to the power given to the decision-maker; (d) there has been compliance with any inviolable limitations or restraints imposed by the Act. (See NAAV at [17], [613], [619] - [620], [625]. 16 The decision of the RRT is thus to be considered by reference to whether these conditions have been satisfied. If they have not been satisfied, s 474(1) will not save the decision from judicial review: NAAV at [21], [106]. 17 The applicant was born in Moldova when it was part of the USSR. He claimed before the RRT that he left Moldova for Ukraine on 1 July 1992 and remained there until 16 November 1999 when he left to travel to Australia. He claimed that in March 1996 he went to the Moldovan Embassy in Kiev and there renounced his Moldovan citizenship in writing. He thereupon applied for Ukrainian citizenship. However, he had not obtained such citizenship when he decided to travel to Australia. 18 The applicant claimed fear of persecution in Moldova because he was part of the Dniester militia which fought against Moldova in secessionist fighting. He claimed that he served with the militia for two months (May-June) in 1992 and during that time he was captured and beaten by Moldovan police. As a result of his activity in the militia, he claimed that he was the subject of outstanding criminal charges and that he feared that if he returned to Moldova he would be imprisoned. 19 The RRT found that the applicant was born in Moldova and was a national of Moldova until 1996, when he renounced his citizenship and that he is now a stateless person. The RRT then dealt with the applicant's claim as one of fear of persecution for an imputed political opinion in his country of former habitual residence, Moldova. 20 In support of his claim, the applicant provided documents to the RRT. In respect of those documents, the RRT found : "16. The applicant provided a document dated 8 October 1992, which the applicant said was obtained by his mother, who pretended to the police not to know the applicant's whereabouts in order to obtain information about the confession the applicant had signed. That document states (in translation) that on 19 August 1992, the public prosecutor of the city of Bendery instituted criminal charges against the applicant related to his activities in the Dniester militia. The applicant provided a second document, dated 15 October 1992, which stated (in translation) that the investigation into the crimes for which the applicant was charged had been suspended because his whereabouts could not be established. 17. On 3 April 2001 I directed that these documents be sent to the Document Examination Unit (DEU) of the Department for an opinion as to their authenticity. On 19 July 2001 the DEU provided an opinion that, based on information obtained from overseas sources, the documents were fraudulent. Specifically, DEU advised that inquiries were made of the agencies referred to in the documents, which revealed that the documents did not bear a stamp of the police office at the top, as required, that there [sic] were signed by an individual who is a 'search investigator' rather than an 'investigator', as required, and that the signatures on the documents were not that of the officer named in the documents. I put this information, in summary, in a letter to the applicant for his response, and again at the hearing. 18. In written submissions and at the hearing, the applicant denied that the documents are fraudulent, stated that the lack of required formalities did not mean that they are fraudulent, and stated that because he uses three different signatures, there is no significance in the fact that the signatures on the documents are not those of the officer named. 19. At the hearing the applicant stated that he did not agree with the DEU report and gave as an example his 'internal passport' (a document, very like a passport, which was in use by the former USSR and some time after the independence of the former Soviets such as Moldova), which he said lacked a seal on his photograph and contains another anomaly in the Moldovan stamp in the passport, yet this document was authentic. I put to the applicant that there is a difference between an authentic document which contains a mistake in the formalities, and a document deliberately signed as authentic but where the signature is not that of the person named as signatory. The applicant then stated that he has three different signatures on official documents (his internal passport, his NSW driver's licence, and his application to the Tribunal) but that each signature was nevertheless his own. I put to the applicant that DEU's inquiries revealed that the signatures in the two documents were specifically checked and found not to be that of the officer named. The applicant stated that he was unable to explain the conclusions of DEU. He stated that he wanted to obtain another opinion from a lawyer in Russia about police documents from Moldova, but when I pointed out that any such general opinion would not resolve the problems with his particular documents, especially as regards the signatures, the applicant did not request time to obtain such an opinion." 21 The RRT found : "48. I do not accept the applicant's claim to be the subject of criminal proceedings in Moldova as a consequence of his participation in the Dniester conflict in 1992. I accept the conclusion of DEU that the two documents which the applicant provided to support the claim that he has outstanding criminal proceedings awaiting him in Moldova are not genuine documents. I am not persuaded to disregard that conclusion on the basis of the applicant's explanations, which I have set out above and which I reject, of how such documents could lack the features of genuine documents yet still be genuine. In particular, I accept the information provided by DEU from inquiries made with the Moldovan agencies concerned that the purported signature of the officer on those documents is not that of the officer identified on the documents, and I accept the conclusion by DEU that the documents are fraudulent. 49. Accordingly, I reject as a fabrication the applicant's claim that he was charged with treason and other crimes as a result of participation in the Dniester conflict. I reject as a fabrication the applicant's claim that if he were to return to Moldova he would suffer persecution as a result of an imputed political opinion in the course of a prosecution for treason. 50. It is possible that the applicant was a participant in the Dniester conflict in 1992, on the part of the Dniester secessionists. Given that I am satisfied that the applicant has fabricated the evidence supporting his claim to have been the subject of criminal charges for any such participation, I decline to make any firm finding on whether he was involved in the conflict in any capacity. For the sake of completeness, however, I am satisfied by the independent information which I have set out above that all participants in that conflict, who were fighting on the Dniester side, were pardoned under a general amnesty announced by the Moldovan government in July 1995, some three years after the applicant's claimed participation. Even if the applicant had been involved in fighting against Moldova in 1992, he would not now be at any risk of harm for that involvement due to the general amnesty implemented. I have rejected the applicant's claim to have been charged with treason and accordingly any ambivalence which may arise in the independent information concerning participants in the conflict who were charged with reason is irrelevant to the applicant's claims." 22 The independent information to which the RRT refers in paragraph 50 of its reasons was material from the Research Directorate of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board and material which is set out in paragraphs 31 and 32 of the reasons of the RRT. As is recorded in paragraph 21 of those reasons, the Canadian material was put to the applicant by the RRT for his comment. 23 The applicant himself put before the RRT material which, upon examination, disclosed that there had been an amnesty declared by the Moldovan government in July 1995 and an earlier partial amnesty in 1994: see paragraphs 22 and 32 of the reasons. 24 Ultimately, the RRT held that the applicant was not outside his country of former habitual residence (whether Moldova or Ukraine) because of Convention-related persecution. The RRT was further satisfied that the applicant's inability to return to either country was not a consequence of a Convention-related fear of persecution. In reaching this conclusion, it relied on the decisions in Rishmari v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (1997) 77 FCR 421 and Diatlov v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (1999) 167 ALR 313. 25 The RRT held, correctly, that statelessness alone was not of itself sufficient to establish refugee status: Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Savvin (2000) 98 FCR 168; Revenko v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2000] 3 WLR 1519 (CA). 26 The RRT found that the applicant did not satisfy the criteria set out in s 36(2) of the Act for a protection visa, and accordingly affirmed the decision under review. 27 Turning now to the Hickman principles, the decision of the RRT related to the subject matter of the Act, namely the review of an "RRT-reviewable decision": s 411. It is reasonably capable of reference to the power of the RRT to affirm, vary or set aside RRT-reviewable decisions: s 414, s 415. There is no suggestion that the RRT failed to satisfy any inviolable limitations or restraints imposed by the Act. 28 The only issue is whether the decision was made in good faith. The decision on its face is a bona fide attempt to exercise the power to review a "RRT-reviewable" decision. However, the applicant contends that the decision was made in bad faith and relies upon two circumstances to make good the assertion. The first ground relates to the report of the Document Examination Unit ("DEU") relied upon by the RRT. The second ground relates to alleged omissions from the Canadian Research Directorate information quoted in paragraph 31 of the RRT's reasons. 29 The applicant obtained on an application under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) copies of documents from Refugee Review Tribunal File N00/33058. One of those documents was a file note of a telephone conversation between a staff member of the RRT and one Sharon Kennedy, an officer of the DEU. The file note said : "At the member's request, I rang Document Examination Unti [sic] officer Sharon Kennedy to discover the source and details of their report that a particular submitted document was fraudulent. She said that DEU sends the material to the Australian Embassy in the particular country and they make enquiries of the agencies referred to in the documents. In relation to this document, the DEU was told that document does not have a stamp of the police office at the top as required, it is signed by an individual who is a Search Inspector rather than an Investigator as it should be, and, in any case, this is not the signature of the officer named." 30 The applicant contends that because there is no Australian Embassy in Moldova, the statement in the minute is false and the advice is "fraudulent". This he contends is confirmed by the refusal of the RRT to give him access to the source materials relied upon by the DEU to conclude that the documents he provided to the RRT were fraudulent. He contends that the use of the advice by the RRT, notwithstanding the deficiency in respect of the absence of an Australian Embassy in Moldova, and his exclusion from materials which would identify the actual enquiries made, is evidence of bad faith on the part of the RRT in making the decision which it did. 31 The applicant contends that the RRT, in its reasons for decision, deliberately refrained from including material which appears in a document of the Research Directorate of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board, being document MDA32400.E dated 5 August 1999 to which reference was made by the RRT in its reasons. The applicant submits that the information qualified and cast doubt on the veracity or reliability of the material quoted by the RRT. 32 The RRT, in paragraph 31 of its reasons, quoted four paragraphs from the Canadian report. The third paragraph of the quotation stated : "In a 25 July 1997 interview given in Russian to the Kiev-based Nezavisimost, former Moldovan President Mircea Ion Snegur acknowledged that the Moldovan government in Chrisinau 'declared an amnesty for all the participants in the conflict long ago'." In the original report, the following paragraph appeared after the above paragraph : "No additional information on this amnesty could be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate." This paragraph does not appear in the RRT quotation. However the applicant, in written submissions to the RRT dated 26 January 2002, quoted to the RRT the third and fourth paragraphs it quotes in paragraph 31, along with other material, and also quoted in full the paragraph omitted by the RRT. He relied upon the omitted paragraph to base a submission that the amnesty of July 1995 was limited to members of the Gagauz Battalion and did not extend to the Dnestrians. 33 The other omission complained of by the applicant is a paragraph which appeared after the fourth paragraph quoted by the RRT and at the end of the Canadian document. It stated : "This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum." 34 As is apparent from the other reports of the Canadian Research Directorate supplied by the applicant to the RRT under cover of the submission dated 26 January 2002, this form of general disclaimer appears on all of the Canadian Research Directorate responses. 35 The applicant contends that the omissions change the sense of the statements quoted in the RRT reasons to his detriment and attempt to remove doubts as to the existence of a general amnesty being granted in July 1995. This, he submits, shows bad faith on the part of the RRT. 36 The question of what constitutes "bad faith" for the purposes of the Hickman principle has been considered by a number of judges of this Court in the context of the Act. In NAAG of 2002 v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2002] FCA 713, Allsop J said : "... Dixon J in R v Murray; Ex parte Proctor, supra at 400, made it clear that the phrase involves an 'honest' attempt to deal with the subject matter conferred to the executive. Bad faith is not just a matter of poor execution or poor decision-making involving error. It is a lack of an honest or genuine attempt to undertake the task in a way meriting personal criticism of the Tribunal or officer in question. Finn J in Daihatsu Australia v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (2001) 184 ALR 576 at [36] referred, by way of exemplification, to the exercise of a power knowingly for an improper purpose or where no attempt is made, knowingly, to act conformably with duty. Heerey J in SBAP v Refugee Review Tribunal [2002] FCA 590 at [47] said that the phrase 'bona fide' involved a serious question involving personal fault on the part of the decision-maker going beyond error of fact or law. It must be clearly identified and proved. I agree. I also agree with the statements of principle made by Mansfield J in SAAG v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2002] FCA 547 at [34] to [36] ...". 37 In SAAG v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2002] FCA 547, Mansfield J said : "[34] I respectfully agree with Finn J in Daihatsu Australia Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation (2001) 184 ALR 576; [2001] FCA 588 at [34] that it is not appropriate in a matter such as the present to attempt a comprehensive exposition of what is and what is not countenanced by the expression 'bona fide attempt to exercise [a] power'. As his Honour said, the burden of the expression has been illustrated by example. I will not repeat the examples his Honour there gave. They were but examples. Also in the context of ss 175 and 177 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth), the Full Court (Spender, Burchett and Hill JJ) in Commissioner of Taxation v Stokes (1996) 141 ALR 653; [1996] FCA 1128 upheld a finding that there had been no bona fide attempt by the Commissioner of Taxation to exercise the power of assessment not by any mala fide on his part but because the power had not been exercised so as to create a definitive liability: see at [67]. That case too illustrates that no comprehensive exposition of what is meant by the expression under consideration should be undertaken. [35] I am also mindful of the judicial strictures against making a finding of lack of good faith on the part of an administrative decision maker too readily. The reasons for that approach are clear. Again, they are discussed by Finn J in Daihatsu at [32] and [36]. It will be a rare and extreme case in which an administrative decision maker will be shown not to have acted in good faith. I am conscious that I should not : " … make the leap too readily from factual error or faulty reasoning (even serious factual error or misconceived reasoning) to a finding …" of lack of good faith. That reference is to the judgment of Sackville J in Yit v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural Affairs [2000] FCA 885 at [32] in the context of an allegation of actual bias so as to enliven the former s 476(1)(f) of the Act, but is I think equally applicable to my present consideration." 38 The allegation of bad faith is a serious allegation, not to be made lightly and must be clearly proved: NACL v Refugee Review Tribunal [2002] FCA 643 at [21] - [22]; SBAP v Refugee Review Tribunal [2002] FCA 590 at [47]. 39 Applying these principles, the applicant does not make out bad faith on the part of the RRT. The file note dated 10 September 2001 records the general practice of the DEU in relation to documents. Whether or not Australia has an embassy in Moldova or simply an Embassy in another country (eg Russia) which also deals with matters relating to Moldova, the note records that the documents were sent overseas and enquiries made of the agencies referred to in the documents. The file note records the response received and the RRT was entitled to rely on that advice, having given the applicant the opportunity to address it which he did. The file note and the use of the information by the RRT does not disclose any bad faith on the part of the RRT in coming to the decision which it did. 40 Turning to the RRT's use of the Canadian material, it is apparent from the reasons of the RRT that it confirmed the statements made by the Canadian Research Directorate with material from other sources. In part, as appears from paragraph 32 of its reasons, that material was provided by the applicant. Paragraph 32 of the reasons stated : "32. As foreshadowed above, there were a number of press reports which the applicant provided to the Department and to the Tribunal which bear on the amnesty for persons, such as the applicant, who participated in the Dniester conflict. In addition to those cited above, the applicant provided a letter from the Chairman of the Moldova committee of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, dated 12 May 2000 to the Executive Director of the Helsinki Committee's head office in Austria, in which the Moldovan Chairman reiterates that Moldova had amnestied the participants of the 1992 Dneister conflict and that there is no information to suggest that Moldova prosecuted any participants after that amnesty, although the Dniester authorities were responsible for arresting and imprisoning participants who lived in Dniester and fought against the Dniester separatists (possibly with the assistance of Moldovan police). The Chairman states that participants who fought against Moldova 'may live and work in Chisinau [Moldova's capital] without problems', and that the information provided for the Canadian report 'was verified from some independent sources and there is no doubt concerning the veracity of the facts'." 41 Any limitations on the Canadian research published, as it was on 5 August 1999, were removed by reference to later confirmatory material. The RRT's treatment of the Canadian material does not disclose bad faith on its part. To the contrary, it demonstrates that the RRT was alive to the need to corroborate or validate that material, if possible, having regard to the limitations expressed in it and to the presence of the disclaimer which accompanied it: see for example paragraph 50 of the RRT's reasons. 42 The applicant fails to make out any of the Hickman limitations. Accordingly, s 474(1) of the Act operates to confirm the finality and conclusiveness of the RRT decision and to prevent it being challenged in any Court. 43 The applicant's attempt to seek in these proceedings judicial review of any decision of the Minister to refuse to grant to him a visa on the basis that he was a stateless person with entitlements under the "Stateless Persons Convention", and, any decision to refuse to vary the conditions attaching to his bridging visa fail for a number of reasons. 44 Firstly, as appears from the written and oral submissions of the applicant, the other decisions of the Minister in respect of which he seeks judicial review, were not made until after the date upon which he commenced this proceeding. He stated in Court that by letter dated 20 May 2002, he wrote to the Minister seeking reconsideration under s 417 of the application for a protection order, notwithstanding the decision of the RRT. He also stated that in the same letter he sought the grant to him of a visa "under the Convention for Stateless Persons 1954". It is unclear whether he also sought in that letter permission to work pending judicial review. In any event, he says he made an application to the Department for permission to work on 13 August 2002, but that such permission was refused. 45 In his written submission the applicant says that the Minister rejected his application under the "Stateless Persons Convention" and under the "Refugee Convention" on 26 July 2002. On the hearing, the applicant read the following from what he said was the letter of the Minister dated 26 July 2002 [T p7] : "I refer to your letter of 20 May requesting I consider exercising my public interest power under Section 417 of Migration Act, 1958, in your case. Under section 417 of the Act, I may substitute for a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal a decision which is more favourable to the applicant if I think it is in the public interest to do so. While I do have the power to consider intervention in your case, it would be inappropriate for me to do so at this time because the case is currently being considered by the Federal Court." 46 A refusal to make a decision under s 417 of the Act, if the letter of the Minister of 26 July 2002 is to be treated as a refusal, is a privative clause decision: s 417, 474(3)(a) and (g). 47 The request to waive any non-working conditions attaching to the applicant's bridging visa amounts to a request to the Minister to exercise the power under s 41(2A) of the Act, which has been refused. That also is a privative decision for the purposes of s 474. 48 The decisions under s 417 and s 41(2A) of the Act are final and conclusive and not subject to challenge unless one or more of the Hickman limitations can be made out. There is no material which would invoke any of the limitations on the operation of the privative clause in s 474(1) of the Act. Further, a decision to exercise the power under s 417 of the Act is a "primary decision" and this Court has no jurisdiction to review such a decision: s 476(2). 49 The power of the Minister to issue visas of any type or for any purpose only arises under the Act, and the exercise of the power is subject to the Act: s 29(1). The applicant must apply for a visa of a particular class if he wants the Minister to grant to him a visa to remain in Australia: s 45. The applicant does not point to any class of visa appropriate to a claim under the "Stateless Persons Convention"; nor to any such application having been made by him for a visa of a particular class. The Minister is only empowered to grant a visa after considering "a valid application for a visa": s 47(1) and (3), s 65(1). A valid visa application is one which satisfies the requirements of s 46 of the Act. There is no evidence of a valid visa application having been made. 50 Secondly, the decisions, if made, were made after the application for review was filed. Even if there was power to allow amendment of the application to plead the relevant circumstances giving an entitlement to judicial review, which there is not, the discretion would be exercised against granting such an amendment: Park Oh Ho v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (1987) 14 FCR 274 at 277 - 278; Minister for Community Services v Dibo Pty Ltd (1992) 38 FCR 292 (FC) at 293 - 294; Vamuta v Soqo Co Limited (1996) 68 FCR 151 at 154 - 155. 51 Finally, the underlying argument as to rights sourced in international treaties and conventions is misconceived. The Convention relating to the status of Stateless Persons adopted in 1954 has not been incorporated into the municipal law of Australia by statute. Thus it does not form part of Australian law: Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Teoh (1995) 183 CLR 273 at 287. Absent incorporation into the municipal law of Australia, the entry into a treaty by Australia does not create enforceable rights and obligations: Re East; ex parte Nguyen (1998) 196 CLR 354 at [19], [20]. If a Convention is incorporated into Australian law, the rights given or obligations created thereby are to be ascertained from the terms of the Australian law properly construed: Re East; ex parte Nguyen at [20]. The applicant's case, to the extent that it is based on the terms of international Conventions or Treaties, and not Australian statutory enactments dealing with such Conventions or Treaties, will fail. 52 It follows for the above reasons that the applicant fails in respect of the relief which he seeks. The application will be dismissed with costs. I certify that the preceding fifty-two (52) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment herein of the Honourable Justice Cooper.