Outline of the reasons of the Federal Magistrates Court the subject of present appeal and my observations in relation to those reasons
8 Nicholls FM summarised the appellants' complaints, as outlined to the Federal Magistrates Court by way of the amended application for review by way of appeal filed on 24 November 2004, as follows:
(i) denial of procedural fairness and natural justice, by reason of the Tribunal's bias or by reason that there was an apprehension of bias;
(ii) withholding by the Tribunal from the appellants of independent country information about Bangladesh, and of the opportunity to comment thereon; and
(iii) failure by the Tribunal to take a 'fresh look' into the appellants' protection visa claim, and a 'totally ignor[ing]' by the Tribunal of that claim, which was asserted on behalf of the appellants to be '100% true' and as involving what was alleged by the appellants to be a 'political crisis within the BNP', and an absence of protection available to the appellants by what was described as the adult male appellant's 'own party'.
In the result, his Honour found no substance or viability in relation to those complaints. However as will be seen from my ongoing summary of the reasons for decision of the Federal Magistrates Court below, it is necessary for me to set out in more detail his Honour's reasoned findings, given the width of scope of the issues addressed by his Honour.
9 Nicholls FM ultimately addressed what became the critical discretionary issue as to delay by the appellants in their pursuit of their second Tribunal application, before proceeding to address the three issues broadly formulated as above by his Honour, and which I have outlined in the preceding paragraph. That issue of delay became ultimately the basis for dismissal of the appeal, which occurred at the culmination of his Honour's consideration of the various other issues raised in the Federal Magistrates Court below. The issue of delay was described by his Honour as 'unexplained and inconsistent with the action of someone who claims to fear persecution and who claims to be aggrieved by a Tribunal decision which did not recognise these claims'. His Honour referred to authority involving recognition of the element of discretion attending the exercise of the grant or refusal of prerogative relief in a migration law context, in particular in circumstances of unwarrantable delay. An exemplification of High Court authority on the subject of circumstances of unwarrantable delay identified by his Honour was Re Refugee Review Tribunal; Ex parte Aala (2000) 204 CLR 82 at [53] and [82] (Gaudron and Gummow JJ). Reference was also made to what was observed subsequently by McHugh J in SAAP at [80] on the matter of delay.
10 In the light of judicial authority cited by Nicholls FM and in the events which had happened, Nicholls FM concluded that the appellants were disqualified from entitlement to prerogative relief, by reason of the discretionary factor of unwarrantable delay in prosecution of the present proceedings. Nicholls FM emphasised in that regard not only the delay of some 13 months on the appellants' part in the lodgement of the later (or second successive) appeal from the Tribunal (this time to the Federal Magistrates Court), the filing whereof occurred on 14 July 2004, but pointed additionally to the withholding by the appellants of explanation for that delay, following upon the appellants having been invited by his Honour to make submissions on that issue. Incidentally the husband/father appellant ('the first appellant') addressed the Federal Magistrates Court on that occasion in person on behalf of his wife and his daughter, as well as of course of himself. His Honour's reasons for conclusion on that delay issue so raised by the Minister, being delay in relation of course to the commencement of this second (and current) series of administrative/curial proceedings mounted by the appellants, were as follows:
'This delay is unexplained, and is inconsistent with the action of someone who claims to fear persecution and who claims to be aggrieved by a Tribunal decision which did not recognise these claims. Further, nor could the applicants argue any unfamiliarity with how to go about making an application to the Court in relation to a Tribunal decision. Clearly the applicants have already been through this process once before in relation to the complaint concerning the first Tribunal's decision, which was ultimately dismissed by the Federal Court….'
Nicholls FM considered that his finding on delay alone sufficed as a viable basis for dismissal in its entirety of the application for review by way of that appeal to the Federal Magistrates Court from the Tribunal's second decision. Thereafter his Honour proceeded to discuss at length the remaining grounds of review propounded by the appellants, to which additional grounds I will now turn.
11 A second ground for review raised below by the appellants in their notice of appeal was that of actual bias or apprehension of bias 'in the making of the purported decision'. The notice of appeal raised a purported natural justice issue based on actual bias or apprehension of bias. Nicholls FM cited a number authorities of the Federal Court and the High Court upon that subject, and concluded on that issue adversely to the appellants, as follows:
'I can see no basis for review of the Tribunal's decision on the basis of actual or apprehended bias. The [appellants] have brought no evidence whatsoever to ground a complaint that the Tribunal did not bring an open mind to the assessment of the claims. It is rarely the case that bias can be made out with reference to the decision record alone, and no further evidence has been provided by the applicant in this respect… .'
In that context his Honour made reference to VFAB v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2003) 131 FCR 102 as an exemplification of those principles, where Kenny J found that a case of apprehended bias had been established adversely to a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal, but which authority was said to exemplify the difficulty of establishing bias. I am unable to discern any viable footing for the appellants' case on bias, or reasonable apprehension of bias, to the extent that the same was ultimately pursued (if at all) on the present appeal, which was not entirely clear. As his Honour emphasised in any event, the doctrine of actual bias in the form of prejudgment seemingly invoked by the appellants required evidence of any such prejudgment by the decision-maker, to the extent that he or she is alleged to have been 'so committed to a conclusion already formed as to be incapable of alteration, whatever evidence or argument may be presented', his Honour citing thereby Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Jia Legeng (2001) 205 CLR 507 at [72] (Gleeson CJ and Gummow J). No such evidence was adduced by the appellants.
12 A third ground for review raised by the appellants below was that of denial of procedural fairness. Nicholls FM pointed to the matters and circumstances in favour of the Minister's case in response, and made the observations which I have correspondingly recorded below:
(i) the Tribunal wrote to the male appellant (being of course the husband/father) on 11 September 2001 and set out the process whereby it proposed to deal with what had become a second or further application for refugee status, thereby indicating (inter alia) that the Tribunal '… will look at your papers and decide whether it has jurisdiction to consider your application [and] if so, it will then look at your papers along with any other evidence on the Tribunal file to determine whether it can make a decision in your favour', and further that '[i]f the Tribunal cannot make a decision in your favour, you will be asked whether you want to come to a hearing of the Tribunal to give oral evidence and to present arguments…';
(ii) there was however no evidence '… to show that the Tribunal's invitation to a hearing to put forward further evidence or arguments was anything other than a genuine attempt to focus the applicant's mind on the unsatisfactory nature of the material he had put forward to that time and to provide any opportunity for that to be addressed';
(iii) there was no basis demonstrated therefore to the effect that such invitation of the Tribunal was merely 'a hollow shell or an empty gesture'.
By referring to the 'applicant', Nicholls FM inferentially included the wife and child of the applicant husband/father (as elsewhere unless inconsistent with the context), all three being the then applicants (and of course the present appellants). I observe that the full names of all three appellants were recorded in the heading to that Tribunal letter of invitation of 11 September 2001 addressed to the first appellant.
13 For the reasons which I have thus far outlined, Nicholls FM observed that he had been unable to distil any indication of a denial of procedural fairness on the part of the Tribunal below, notwithstanding the case foreshadowed to the Federal Magistrates Court to that effect. His Honour additionally observed on that subject that the Tribunal, in its later letter of 13 March 2003, had put the first appellant on notice that if he did not attend the Tribunal hearing, the consequences might be that the Tribunal would 'make a decision on your case without further notice' (see in that regard what appears in the first paragraph of the Tribunal's reasons for decision of 28 April 2003 under the heading 'Finding and Reasons'). So much was described by his Honour as an indication by the Tribunal that any rejection of the invitation would lead to the kind of 'inevitable consequence' spoken of by the Full Federal Court in NAVX v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2004] FCAFC 287 at [5] (French, Emmett and Dowsett JJ). However as Nicholls FM recorded, there was no attendance by or on behalf of any one or more of the present appellants, being a non-attendance which was unexplained, with the consequence of the Tribunal being '… authorised to proceed to decide the review in the applicant's absence', his Honour citing (inter alia) VNAA v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2004) 136 FCR 407 at [16] (Sundberg and Hely JJ), and referring to s 426A of the Migration Act.
14 A further element of the case for denial of natural justice advanced by the appellants against the Minister in the Federal Magistrates Court below related to the use made beforehand by the Tribunal of the country information upon which it purportedly relied relevantly to its decision-making. The complaints made in that regard, as Nicholls FM recorded in the course of his reasons for decision, were that the Tribunal did not give to the appellants the country information on which it relied, and further that the Tribunal did not extend to the appellants an opportunity to evaluate or make submissions otherwise concerning the use of that information. By reason of those omissions of the Tribunal complained of, the appellants asserted denial of natural justice. His Honour observed that the appellants' application for review of the Tribunal decision predated the enactment of s 422B of the Migration Actheaded 'Exhaustive statement of natural justice hearing rule', with the consequence that '[t]he common law rules of procedural fairness are not excluded from applying in the case before me'. Nevertheless as his Honour proceeded to record, '… there is no general proposition that the failure to put adverse country information to an applicant, on its own, amounts to a breach of natural justice', citing thereby the Full Federal Court's decision in VHAP of 2002 v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2004) 80 ALD 559 at [17] (Gyles and Conti JJ) and [27]-[28] (Allsop J).
15 Nicholls FM acknowledged that country information issues raised at the instance of the Minister which gave rise to a breach of common law procedural fairness may in particular occur '… where the information is critical to the Tribunal decision, and the applicant is not on notice of the issues raised by the information', and in those situations, the applicant for relief 'clearly should not be caught unawares or be in the dark about the case against him'. It was pointed out by his Honour however that '[i]n the case before me and in relation to the use of country information in the context of fairness the applicant was given the opportunity to attend a hearing before the Tribunal', and accordingly '[i]n circumstances where the Tribunal had put the applicant on notice that on what was before it, it could not make a decision in his favour… [then] [i]n the context of the common law principles of procedural fairness the applicant cannot now complain when he chose not to take up that opportunity'. Nicholls FM referred in that context to the following passage in the reasons for judgment in NAVX at [5]:
'In assessing the adequacy of these reasons, it must be kept in mind that the Tribunal had indicated to the appellant that it was unable to find in his favour on the basis of the material in its possession and invited him to attend to provide additional information. Clearly enough, the Tribunal was not obliged to accept at face value his short and very vague outline of his basis for fearing persecution in China. Having found that the outline was not sufficient to satisfy it that the appellant had a well-founded fear of persecution, it could do little more than offer him an opportunity to elaborate. When he failed to accept that opportunity, the inevitable consequence was the rejection of his application.'
16 I should add for completeness, in relation to what the Tribunal had determined in the light of the country information available to it, that Nicholls FM further pointed out that '… the Tribunal is not required to invite comment on its thought processes on the way to its decision-making', the Minister citing in support of that tenet what was said in Re Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Ex parte Applicant S154/2002 (2003) 201 ALR 437 by Gummow and Heydon JJ at [54] and [57]-[58], and by Kirby J at [85]-[86], and further in Commissioner for Australian Capital Territory Revenue v Alphaone Pty Ltd (1994) 49 FCR 576 at 592 by Northrop, Miles and French JJ. It was pointed out further in the joint judgment of Gummow and Heydon JJ in S154/2002 at [56]-[58] that the evidentiary rule in Browne v Dunn 'has no application to proceedings in the tribunal', except to the extent that the rule might be exemplified in the requirements of s 424A. In the present case however, so Nicholls FM further pointed out, the Tribunal had foreshadowed explicitly to the appellants the conclusions which were open to be reached on the material in evidence placed before it, and which would be possibly adverse to them, and accordingly that '… the applicant could not have been left in the dark as to the risk of an adverse finding being made'.
17 Furthermore as I have already recorded on related matters, by letter dated 11 September 2001 the Tribunal notified the appellants that once it might decide that it had jurisdiction to consider their application, '… it will then look at your papers along with any other evidence on the Tribunal file to determine whether it can make a decision in your favour'. So much was said 'clearly… [to] have included relevant documents from the [Minister's] department' which Nicholls FM thereupon particularised in his reasons. Additionally his Honour drew attention to the Tribunal's reference to other independent country information related to Bangladesh relied upon by the Minister on the application to the Tribunal for review, in relation to which the appellants 'would have been on notice of some of the country information used by the Tribunal from the delegate's reliance on it and… the rest… was… "general information" dealing with such matters as population distribution'. In his Honour's view therefore, '[i]n all the circumstances I cannot see that this complaint can be made out', in that reference to the country information relied upon by the Tribunal was in reality adequately disclosed. Moreover his Honour further pointed out that '[i]n terms of the statutory requirements, the general country information relied on by the Tribunal, and in particular as referred to in its decision record… is clearly information that is excluded by s 424A(3)(a) of the Act from the obligation to put such information to the [appellants] pursuant to s 424A(1)', being information described by s 424A(3)(a) as 'not specifically about the applicant or another person and [being] just about a class of persons of which the applicant or other person is a member'.
18 Nicholls FM addressed the appellants' complaint that the Tribunal did not have a so-called 'fresh look' at the subject claims to refugee status, and observed that the complaint was unsustainable, at least because the claims were framed merely as assertions involving what amounted to submissions in reality as to merits review, his Honour referring in that regard to Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Wu Shan Liang (1996) 185 CLR 259. More to the point in relation to the appellants' case on the present appeal to the Federal Court, his Honour addressed at some length issues tendered by the appellants in relation to the scope of operation of s 424A of the Migration Act, being issues which dominated the appellants' case raised by their belated written submissions provided purportedly in line with the amended notice of appeal and particulars filed in relation thereto (see again [3] above).
19 Nicholls FM made the following further observations upon the implications of the common law rules of procedural fairness and also the operation of s 424A in relation to the present appeal:
(i) as to the common law rules of procedural fairness, the documentary material relied upon by the Tribunal, being 'CX31417' described as 'US State Department publication: Bangladesh: profile of asylum claims and country conditions, bureau of democracy, human rights and labor, February 1998', was 'exactly the same document' [as was placed] before the delegate', and accordingly the appellants 'would therefore have already known about the existence of this document, given that [they] make reference to the file of the Department… in the application for review to the Tribunal, and [the appellants] were notified of the delegate's decision by letter attaching the same'; that document was amongst those listed in Part B to the delegate's decision of 30 August 2001;
(ii) as to the Tribunal's compilation of reasons relating to the appellants' behaviour in Bangladesh, that behaviour was inconsistent with persons having a genuine fear of persecution in Bangladesh contexts; in any event as I have elsewhere discussed, the first appellant made claims appertaining only to experience in the Dhaka district, having made no effort to relocate to any of the other 63 districts in Bangladesh beyond Dhaka; and
(iii) the Tribunal found generally that the first appellant's conduct in pursuing his claims reflected a 'catalogue of repeated tardiness and failure to co-operate', which led to the conclusion in his Honour's view that he had no fear of persecution, being a finding that his Honour considered to have been open to the Tribunal to conclude on the material placed before it, and for which conclusion the Tribunal had in any event given reasons; so much has been elsewhere referred to in these submissions upon the critical issue as to delay.
20 Nicholls FM observed that the Tribunal had assumed '… the first appellant's claims as to what happened to him up to 1997 in Bangladesh were [still] true'. However the Tribunal had found, by reference to the independent information in evidence available at the time of decision-making compiled some six years after the appellants had left Bangladesh, 'that the circumstance [in Bangladesh] had changed to the extent that the party [of] which [the first appellant] claim[s] to be a supporter was now in government'. Moreover his Honour considered that after taking into consideration the up-dated country information, the Tribunal concluded that the legal system in Bangladesh had evolved to the stage that '… [the appellants] could eventually secure justice in circumstances where [their complaints] may be true', so much being a further finding described by his Honour as open to the Tribunal to reach on the evidence before it.
21 Further findings of the Tribunal recorded and relied upon by Nicholls FM below included the following (to which I have already made partial reference but repeat for completeness):
(i) the appellants could safely and reasonably relocate out of their home district (the Dhaka district) in Bangladesh to one of the other 63 districts in Bangladesh;
(ii) the Tribunal was clearly conscious of the relevant test to be applied in considering the issue of relocation, namely that the Tribunal should not merely address whether an applicant could relocate to another area but whether the applicants could reasonably be expected to do so (Randhawa v Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (1994) 52 FCR 437 at 442 per Black CJ);
(iii) the Tribunal did look specifically at the relevant country information about population size and dispersal in Bangladesh, the dispersal and spread of relevant political parties, issues relating to politics and violence in Bangladesh, and the judiciary and police and the role they played in Bangladeshi affairs, and also the appellant husband/ father's ability to 'support himself and his family in an unfamiliar country (Australia) for almost six years' and found that it had 'no doubt' that the appellant husband had the ability 'to support himself [and his family] in the country in which he was born, and educated, spent most of his life, and still had family'.
22 Returning therefore to the operation of s 424A and related matters arising, Nicholls FM found in summary as follows:
'… in the context of any SAAP/Al Shamry issue (the country information referred to by the Tribunal) the judiciary and politics and in the statutory context clearly fell within the exemption provided in s 424A(3)(a) from the obligation contained in s 424A(1). The Tribunal's finding on relocation was consistent with the relevant test, and open to it on the material before it.'
The reference above to Al Shamry was to the Full Federal Court decision in Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Al Shamry (2001) 110 FCR 27; I have already of course made brief reference to SAAP.
23 Nicholls FM next addressed another issue which has arisen with more attention on this appeal, which may be described as whether, even if the Tribunal had not fulfilled the requirements of s 424A of the Migration Act in relation to any ground or set of reasons upon or by reference to which the decision of the Tribunal was made, there existed at least more unimpeachable grounds or sets of reasons on which the decision had been rightly based. The Tribunal was said by his Honour to have 'clearly differentiated between at least the three sets of reasons that it gave for affirming the decision under review'.
24 Those three grounds or sets of reasons of the Tribunal, being the subject of subpars (c), (d) and (e) of par 1 of the amended notice of appeal extracted in [3] above, and described by the Tribunal as 'three good sets of reasons for concluding that the applicants have no real chance of persecution for a Convention reason if returned to Bangladesh',are appropriate to reproduce in sequence and to the extent of virtually their entire text below:
'First because the claims made by the applicant on key issues have changed from time to time in significant ways. To prove this point it is enough to see the differences in the claims about the applicant's employment…, place of residence…, when he reported the claimed 19 March 1997 attack… and whether there were arrest warrants issued for him. In addition, whichever version of his place of residence one believes, it is remarkable that in both versions he claims to have been at the one address for significant periods either side of the [June] 1996 election and thus was at that address at a time when he claims that he was attacked several times by the Awami League - it is not credible that a person who is supposedly under serious sustained attack from his enemies would continue to reside at his long-term address, which is no doubt why he modified the claim about residence when he initiated his second case. The differences mentioned and this point about the address lead me to conclude that the applicant has exaggerated or fabricated his political activism and the situation he faced and faces in Bangladesh. I attach no significance to the documents he provided because he undercut the credibility of some of them himself and the country information on page 13 and my own experience of dozens of Bangladeshi cases alert me to the notorious unreliability of such documents.
Second because the applicant's behaviour before and after his various lodgements of claims (relating to the 1997 case and the 2001 case) has not been consistent with that of a person with a genuine fear of persecution for a Convention reason. The only places which he mentioned in relation to his political activity and the threats to him are in Dhaka district and there is no reason to suppose that he was known or threatened outside Dhaka yet he apparently made no effort to relocate within Bangladesh to one of the 63 districts outside Dhaka. He did not leave Bangladesh until over two months after he obtained his Australian visa… . When he left Bangladesh he left legally and by using a passport in his own name… . His first application for a protection visa was made in July 1997, four weeks after he arrived in June… . He did not supply a set of Convention-related claims until 22 months later, in May 1999. His oral evidence at the RRT hearing in May 1999 was unconvincing (see decision N97/18939). He did not bother to be represented at the Federal Court hearing of his appeal in September 1999. He allowed a gap of 18 months between the final end of his first case (in January 2000) and the initiation of his second case (July 2001). His statutory declaration received by DIMIA in July 2001 was simply a copy of his one submitted 26 months before…. He did not respond to the July 2001 letter from DIMIA… . He has never provided the material which he promised in his September 2001 RRT application... . He did not bother to attend the 28 April 2003 RRT hearing he had promised to attend… . This catalogue of repeated tardiness and failure to co-operate leads me to conclude that the applicant was in no hurry to go anywhere or to do anything because there was no reason for him to be in a hurry because he had and has no fear of persecution.
Third because even if his claims about what happened to him in 1997 and before were true, they have been overtaken by events. He has been out of Bangladesh for six years and I see no reason to suppose that any political enemies he had then would continue to be interested in him. The party which he claims to support is now in government and the country information on pages 10 to 12 leads me to conclude that that confers advantages on its supporters in terms of benevolent treatment from the organs of the state. In terms of any legal action the applicant faces, I note that he has not been convicted of a crime or any offence… . For reasons given elsewhere in this decision I do not believe that his claim that he faces any cases (false or otherwise) is credible but if he does face a case or cases then I conclude from the country information on the judiciary… that he would eventually secure justice. Moreover any cases resulting from the politically-motivated animus of his supposed opponents during the previous Awami League administration would clearly be seen for what they are and be treated accordingly.
There are 64 districts in Bangladesh… . The only district he has mentioned is Dhaka district. The fact that he kept living there for so long despite the supposed threat to him leads me to conclude that he did not fear persecution there because he has exaggerated or fabricated that threat.
…
If for any reason the applicant does not wish to live in Dhaka district, the country information… leads me to conclude that there are many other parts of the country in which it would be reasonable to expect him to be able to relocate. He has managed to support himself and his family in an unfamiliar country (Australia) for almost six years so I have no doubt of his ability to support himself and them in the country in which he was born, was educated, spent most of his life and still has family.
If the applicant wishes to pursue politics in Bangladesh in a manner which does not involve thuggery and criminality of the sort which characterises much of Bangladeshi politics, the material… leads me to conclude that he would be able to do so and have little to fear from rival political groups, especially if he pursued such activities outside of Dhaka district.'
25 Upon the footing of each of those 'three good sets of reasons' so-called by the Tribunal, the Tribunal made supplementary observations to be read in conjunction therewith, including reference to Randhawa v Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (1994) 52 FCR 437 at 440-443 for the proposition, which I have already foreshadowed, that protection is not available in the case of a well-founded fear in an applicant's home region where that applicant can 'nevertheless avail [himself or herself] of the real protection of [his or her] country of nationality elsewhere within that country'. The Court added the qualification that the applicant must also be able to 'genuinely access domestic protection', and relocation needs to be a reasonable option in the particular circumstances (see in that regard Beaumont J at 450-1). The Tribunal member concluded his reasons for decision as follows:
'For the above reasons, I conclude that the applicant does not face Convention-related persecution in Bangladesh because there is nothing credible in his claims to indicate that he has a profile which would lead to him being wanted by the Awami League or the authorities or anyone else outside of Dhaka let alone in Dhaka.
The inadequacies and inconsistencies of the applicant's claims and of his behaviour in pursuit of his claims lead me to conclude that the applicant did not and does not have a genuine fear of persecution. The reasons set out above lead me to conclude that he has no well-founded fear of persecution within the meaning of the Convention. Accordingly, I am satisfied that he is not a refugee.'
26 It was partly in the context of the formulation of those 'three sets of reasons' of the Tribunal of a fundamentally factual or circumstantial character, and of his Honour's consideration of the implications thereof, that Nicholls FM concluded his reasons for judgment below by reference to what he described as the critical issue arising on the appeal to the Federal Magistrates Court, explained as follows:
'The critical issue therefore, even if the Tribunal breached the requirements of s 424A (as understood in the context of SAAP in relation to one ground ("sets of reasons") upon which the decision was made, is whether there is one or more other grounds on which the decision was based, which cannot, or are not, impeached. That is, was there another separate basis, or bases, upon which the decisions may be supported. The Tribunal itself by the very language that it used clearly differentiated between at least three sets of reasons that it gave for affirming the decision under review. Bearing in mind the relevant authorities even if there is some difficulty in the Tribunal's first set of stated reasons (the first part of the first set), the second and third reasons, independently and separately from each other, and then the Tribunal's separate and independent finding in relation to relocation are each not in my view affected by jurisdictional error and can independently support the Tribunal's ultimate conclusion that the applicant did not satisfy the relevant criteria for a protection visa. Had I not dismissed on the basis of unwarrantable delay, I would have dismissed on this basis in any event.'
I have earlier of course made reference to that delay attributed by the Federal Magistrate to the appellants.
27 It is of assistance, in the context of the complexity and detail of the reasoning and findings of the Tribunal and of Nicholls FM below, to read the conclusions of his Honour upon the four principal issues identified by his Honour in association with his summary of the Tribunal's findings appearing in [5] of his reasons for judgment below. Those issues may be described (as has been foreshadowed) first as to exaggerations and fabrications of the adult male appellant in respect of his political activism, secondly as to behaviour inconsistent with his having any genuine fear of persecution, thirdly as to recent independent country information, and fourthly as to the implications of the country information concerning safety of relocation in Bangladesh available to the appellants. Such four themes are not to be read in any mutually exclusive way, as is apparent from the text of the so-called three sets of reasons of the Tribunal (ante).