SZAPH & Ors v MIMIA [2005] HCATrans 484 (4 August 2005)

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SZAPH & Ors v MIMIA [2005] HCATrans 484 (4 August 2005)

Last Updated: 24 August 2005

[2005] HCATrans 484

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
Sydney No S391 of 2004

B e t w e e n -

SZAPH

First Applicant

SZAPI

Second Applicant

SZAPJ

Third Applicant

SZAPK

Fourth Applicant

and

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

Respondent

Application for special leave to appeal

Publication of reasons and pronouncement of orders

GLEESON CJ
GUMMOW J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT CANBERRA ON THURSDAY, 4 AUGUST 2005, AT 9.27 AM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

__________________

GLEESON CJ: The applicants are husband and wife and two children who arrived in Australia in 2002. They are citizens of Fiji, of Indian ethnicity and followers of the Hindu religion. They claim to be entitled to refugee status by reason of a well-founded fear of persecution on grounds first of their ethnic and religious backgrounds and secondly of their inability to obtain state protection in Fiji.

The Refugee Review Tribunal affirmed the decision of a delegate of the Minister to refuse to grant the applicants protection visas. The applicant husband claimed that on four separate occasions between October 1993 and October 1998, his person and property were maltreated by ethnic Fijians. He also alleged that in December 1999, ethnic Fijians set fire to the house next door to his. The Tribunal accepted that the incidents so described had occurred. It also accepted that inter-racial difficulties in Fiji had been manifest in the aftermath of elections. However, on the basis of country information which suggested an improving and increasingly stable situation in Fiji, it found that Indo-Fijians generally did not face a serious risk of persecution there.

The applicants sought review of the Tribunal’s decision in the Federal Magistrates Court, alleging, amongst other things, a denial of procedural fairness arising from non-disclosure of the country information upon which the Tribunal relied. The Court dismissed their application on the basis that non-disclosure had not been established and that, at any rate, the obligation to disclose did not extend to information which was notorious or had previously been disclosed. An appeal to the Federal Court (Madgwick J) was subsequently dismissed.

We have reviewed the applicants’ written case and the decisions of the Tribunal, the Federal Magistrates Court and the Federal Court. It is apparent from their written case that the applicants seek to re-open the fact-finding process in which the Tribunal had engaged. There are insufficient prospects of success of any appeal to this Court from the decision of the Federal Court. Accordingly, special leave to appeal is refused.

Pursuant to r 41.10.5 we direct the Registrar to draw up, sign and seal an order dismissing this application for special leave.

AT 9.29 AM THE MATTER WAS CONCLUDED