Applicant NARO v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs [2003] FCAFC 101

FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Applicant NARO v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural

& Indigenous Affairs [2003] FCAFC 101

APPLICANT NARO v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND

MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS N1349 of 2002 CARR, KIEFEL & ALLSOP JJ 21 MAY 2003 SYDNEY

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY N1349 OF 2002

ON APPEAL FROM A JUDGE OF THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

BETWEEN: APPLICANT NARO

Appellant

AND: MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

Respondent

JUDGES: CARR, KIEFEL & ALLSOP JJ

DATE OF ORDER: 21 MAY 2003

WHERE MADE: SYDNEY

THE COURT ORDERS THAT: 1. The appeal be dismissed. 2. The appellant pay the respondent's costs of the appeal. Note: Settlement and entry of orders is dealt with in Order 36 of the Federal Court Rules.

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY N1349 OF 2002

ON APPEAL FROM A JUDGE OF THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

BETWEEN: APPLICANT NARO

Appellant

AND: MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

Respondent

JUDGES: CARR, KIEFEL & ALLSOP JJ

DATE: 21 MAY 2003

PLACE: SYDNEY

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

introduction 1 This is an appeal from a decision, made by a judge of this Court on 26 November 2002, to dismiss the appellant's application for review of a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal made on 21 June 2002 but not "handed down" until 16 July 2002. The Tribunal affirmed a decision of a delegate of the respondent, made on 17 January 2000, not to grant a protection visa to the appellant.

factual and procedural background 2 The appellant, now aged 34 and a citizen of Bangladesh, arrived in Australia on a visitor visa on 27 November 1999. On 10 January 2000 she lodged an application for a protection visa. The appellant's claims to refugee status can be summarised as follows: * She had been a political activist as a schoolgirl before she was even 14 years of age. At one school she had been elected General Secretary of the student wing (known as "the JCD") of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ("the BNP") and had been "in full swing" politically after 1984, becoming head of the JCD at another college. Her teachers and her father (a headmaster of a high school) had been appreciative of her political work, although she had failed to sit for her HSC examination due to her political activities. * The appellant had become a teacher and had been widely respected and very widely known in her area, an area known as Narayangonj, for her activities on behalf of the BNP. She had worked hard for the Party during the 1991 and 1996 election campaigns. In that part of her written statement which referred to the 1996 election, the appellant gave the name of the Awami League candidate who became the parliamentary member for her constituency. At the hearing before the Tribunal she named the BNP candidate for whom she had worked in the 1996 election campaign. She re-stated those names at different times during the hearing. The Tribunal put to her that the name given in her written statement for the Awami League candidate in 1996 had differed from the name given to the Tribunal at the hearing. The Tribunal, in its reasons, noted that the appellant appeared to be a little nonplussed by this, but had replied by saying that the person whom she had named was nevertheless a political force in the area and had won a local government seat in 1996. * At the 1996 election, so the appellant claimed, many of the leading BNP activists had left Narayangonj to save their lives. The Tribunal put to the appellant that the result of the 2001 election, in which the BNP took all five seats in Narayangonj, indicated that the BNP had built up a big force in the area since 1996, rather than having evaporated. The appellant gave no substantive reply to this. * The BNP was now full of Taliban operatives who had previously been in the Awami League. If she returned to Bangladesh BNP contacts would ask her to join them, but she could not do so as the Party, so she claimed, had changed. * She could not return to Bangladesh as she feared violence at the hands of Awami League thugs. She had led demonstrations supporting general strikes and had been threatened with harm for doing this by Awami League activists. They had ganged up on her on one occasion on a street, had demanded that she give up politics and had used profane language. The thugs had run away when "thousands" of her students had come to her aid. The attack had been ordered by the Awami League local leader. * At the Tribunal hearing the appellant added new claims to the effect that her sari had been half pulled off by the attackers (and in fact had been torn to pieces) and that she had almost been raped. * Violence against women was a big threat in Bangladesh because the Jama'at Islami Party was part of the governing coalition and practised violence against women. Its influence was so great that she had had to take a big risk to go out and work as a teacher.