Case: SZMXP v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2009] FMCA 495
Outcome: affirmed
is an appeal against a judgment of a Federal Magistrate delivered on 21 May 2009 ( SZMXP v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2009] FMCA 495) in which the Federal Magistrate dismissed an application for judicial review of a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal ( the Tribunal ), made on 24 September 2008 and handed down on 16 October 2008. The Tribunal had affirmed a decision of a delegate of the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship to refuse to grant a protection visa to the appellant. The appellant is a citizen of Bangladesh, who arrived in Australia on 21 February 2008. On 3 March 2008 the appellant lodged an Application for a Protection (Class XA) visa with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. A delegate of the first respondent refused the appellant's Application for a Protection visa on 30 May 2008. On 23 June 2008, the appellant applied to the Tribunal for a review of that decision. Before the Tribunal, the appellant claimed to have a well-founded fear of persecution because of his involvement with the Awami League in Bangladesh. The appellant claimed that he joined the student wing of the Awami League in 1989 while still at school, was elected president of the first year committee of the Bangladesh Chattra League at his college in 1991, and was elected General Secretary of the Janjira Thana Awami League Committee in 1994. He claimed that in 1996 he was elected an Executive Member and President of the Shariatpur District Awami League Committee. The appellant also claimed that in 2001 the BNP and other Muslim fundamentalists declared him a stranger in the area where he lived and threatened that he would be killed by a bomb blast if he did not cease to act on behalf of the Awami League. He stated that he went to the police in light of these threats, but that the police were reluctant to help him because of his Awami League involvement. He claimed that the police advised him that, if he did not leave the area, they would arrest him as they had received a complaint against him. He claimed that he fled to Dhaka, where a senior party figure organised work for him in Singapore. He claimed that, after he fled his home, BNP-Jammat activists destroyed his house and threatened his family members and that the police came to his house on a number of occasions to arrest him. He stated that he returned to Bangladesh on 3 February 2008 following the appointment of a caretaker government there. He claimed that, upon his return on that occasion, the police went to his home to arrest him and that, on 18 February 2008, he again fled to Singapore, from where he then travelled to Australia. The Federal Magistrate held that the issues in the present case were indistinguishable from those in SZNEC [2009] FMCA 432. The Federal Magistrate said ( SZMXP [2009] FMCA 495 at [7] ): In my view, it is clear that the outcome in this case is determined by the decision of the Full Court in SZLPO . Based upon the reasoning of the Full Court, and my own analysis of that reasoning in SZNEC , there was no breach of s.424 or s. 424B in this case. Section 424(2) does not apply because the Tribunal was not seeking additional information from a natural person. Neither, on the facts of this case, was DFAT acting as the agent of the Tribunal. Because s.424(2) does not apply, neither does s.424B. It follows that no jurisdictional error in the decision of the Tribunal has been established and the application must be dismissed as a privative clause decision. I will so order.