the proceedings in the Federal Circuit Court
14 On 2 September 2014 the applicant commenced proceedings in the Federal Circuit Court seeking review of the Tribunal's decision. The grounds of the application before the Federal Circuit Court were as follows (as written):
1. RRT did not look into my case properly.
2. RRT ignore the real fact is my safety/
3. I need protection otherwise my life will be at risk.
15 The applicant also sought the following "interlocutory, interim or procedural orders" (as written):
1. Please set aside the decision made by RRT as it did not look into the facts a my case properly. RRT did not make a favorable decesion despite I met all the requirements to grant my protection visa.
2. My life will be in danger, if I have to return to my home country so, I need protection in Australia to save my life.
16 Based on the Minister's earlier submissions that the application did not raise an arguable case for the relief sought, the matter proceeded as a show cause hearing pursuant to Pt 44 of the FCC Rules. The primary judge identified that the issue before the Court was whether the grounds of the application raised an arguable case for the relief sought, noting that the applicant sought orders that the Tribunal's decision be quashed and returned to it for reconsideration: SZUZR at [20]. The primary judge then set out the test for the exercise of the Court's power under Pt 44 of the FCC Rules to dismiss an application.
17 The primary judge noted that the orders the applicant sought took issue with the Tribunal's factual findings and, in one important respect, ignored its adverse finding as to his credibility. His Honour found that the applicant's assertion, both in his grounds of application and orally before the Court, that his life would be in danger if he returned to his home country did not rise above a request for impermissible merits review and did not raise any legally arguable case to set aside the Tribunal decision.
18 The primary judge found that the grounds of application sought merits review. His Honour noted that the Tribunal affirmed the delegate's decision because it found the applicant's evidence and claims about past events of claimed harm to be untruthful and because it found that the matters which it did accept, his religion and ethnicity, did not, on the evidence before it, give rise to a real risk of serious or significant harm. The primary judge held that the Tribunal's findings were all reasonably open to it based on the material before it, that it gave comprehensive and cogent reasons for its conclusions and the antecedent findings which informed them and that the assignment of weight to the applicant's evidence and country information was a matter for the Tribunal: SZUZR at [23]-[24].
19 The primary judge observed that the Court had no power to assess the applicant's claims and evidence to fear harm and to substitute its own findings of fact for those of the Tribunal. His Honour held that the applicant's complaint that the Tribunal did not look into his case properly did not provide any basis for any arguable case because the Tribunal's disbelief of the applicant in the circumstances presented to it did not mean that it failed to properly consider his claims: SZUZR at [25].
20 The primary judge concluded that the grounds of the application did not raise an arguable case for the relief sought and that, while the FCC Rules provide that at a hearing of an application to show cause an applicant is confined to the grounds mentioned in his or her application, the applicant did not raise anything further with the court that would have made it appropriate to dispense with that rule pursuant to r 1.06 of the FCC Rules. In the circumstances, the primary judge held that it was appropriate the application be dismissed pursuant to r 44.12(1)(a) of the FCC Rules: SZUZR at [26]-[27].