pmacrnT No.7 Slo SB. LIMITED CIRCULATION CATCHWORDS ADMINISTRATIVE LAW - Application for review of decision refusing to grant resident status ~ Application for review of deportation order. IMMIGRATION - Application for order staying operation of deportation order pending hearing of application for judicial review. Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 MUKESH CHAND SINGH and SNEH LATA SINGH Vv. THE MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND ETHNIC AFFAIRS G 25 of 1988 LOCKHART J. 8 JANUARY 1988 SYDNEY IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA ) ) NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY ) No. G25 of 1988 ) ) GENERAL DIVISION BETWEEN : MUKESH CHAND SINGH and SNEH LATA SINGH Applicants AND: THE MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND ETHNIC AFFAIRS Respondent 8 January 1988 REASONS FOR JUDGMENT LOCKHART J. This 1s an_ urgent hearing of an application by the applicants, who are Fijian citizens, for an order staying the operation of a deportation order made against them by the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs or his delegate on 4 January 1988. The matter was brought on urgently today, following the filing of an application for orders of review and the supporting affidavit of Mr. J.0.C. Fellows, the solicitor for the applicants. The application seeks, first, a review of a decision of the Minister made on 11 December 1987 refusing to grant resident status to the applicants and, second, a review of the order of deportation to which ft have referred. bl The grounds of the application, as specified in the application do not set out the facts but simply echo the relevant provisions of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 ("the A.D.J.R. Act"). These grounds assert, amongst other things, that a breach of the rules of natural justice occurred 1n connection with the making of the decisions. The affidavit of Mr. Fellows in support of the application is a formal affidavit setting out some of the relevant facts relating to the applicants. Mr. Fellows has alsa told me from the bar table of other facts which fall within his instructions. Mr. Fellows assures me that some of these facts are to be contained in an affidavit which is presently being prepared and which the applicants, Mr. and Mrs. Singh, propose to swear soon. I have acted in relation to this matter on the basis that the facts, as outlined by Mr. Fellows and as set out in his affidavit, are true and are the facts of the case, so that the affidavit, if and when it is sworn, will add nothing relevant to what I have been told. This course has not been opposed by the solicitor for the Minister. I have taken this course because the application today is that the deportation order made on 4 January be stayed. it is antended by the Minister that the applicants be deported to Fiji next Monday, 11 January, 1988. The facts before the Court about the applicants are fairly limited. The applicants are, as I said, Fijian citizens. The male applicant 1s aged 27 and the female applicant 21. They are married and there are no children of the marriage. They are of Indian extraction, although born in Fiji. Both entered Australia on 10 January 1987 from New Zealand, having been on a trip from Fiji to New Zealand and Australia as tourists. They were granted Tourists' Visas for one month which expired on 9 February 1987. Thereafter, they worked in this country until their apprehension by the Federal Police in December 1987. Since their apprehension, they have been detained at the Villawood Detention Centre. As I understand them, the grounds on which the application for review is based are that the applicants, 1f they return to Fiji, will be returning to a country in volatile and uncertain political times. This situation has special significance for people like themselves, who are part of the Indian population. The applicants have no family to care for them who may look after their interests in Fiji. Their prospects of gaining employment in Fiji seem slight, if not non-existent. The female applicant has made two unsuccessful attempts to take her own life, which, I am prepared to assume, are of recent occurrence. The matters to which I have referred have been before the relevant decision-maker within the Department of Immigration and no doubt were taken into account when the relevant decisions were made. Although there is some suggestion on behalf of the applicants that the facts of the two unsuccessful suicide attempts may not have been before the decision-maker, the solicitor for the Minister informs me that those matters were before the decision-maker and were taken into account. In addition, the applicants have either put in train or are about to put in train proceedings whereby they propose to call in aid 4. the Commonwealth Ombudsman or the Human Rights Commission of this country to assist them. I am not wholly clear as to the nature of these proceedings, but the applicants hope that such proceedings would lead to their being able to remain 1n this country with some form of legal status, whether as refugees or otherwise. In urgent applications of this kind it is inevitable that the evidence is fairly flimsy. One must take, as I have, a broad view of the facts in favour of the applicants and not adopt too final or precise a construction of the relevant circumstances. But for the purpose of staying a deportation order some case muslL be made out which satisfies the Court that there 15 an arquable question to be tried sufficient to justify the intervention of the Court. I have given careful thought to the matters relied on and I can discern nothing which could constitute a challenge to the validity of the decisions of the Minister to refuse resident status and, more particularly, to deport the applicants. If I thought there was some arguable question to be tried I would give serious consideration to granting the stay; however, I do not discern any such question. Accordingly, the course I propose to take 1s to refuse to make an order that the deportation order be stayed. The application for review may be stood over toa date to be fixed for the purpose of directions, if the application 1s then of any current relevance. Costs shall be costs in the proceeding. I certify that this and the preceding three (3) pages are a true copy of the reasons for judgment herein of the Honourable Mr. Justice Lockhart. Associate A Rede — Dated: 8 January 1988 . o f Solicitors for the Applicant: Adrian & Fellows Solicitors for the Respondent: Australian Government Solicitor Date of Hearing: 8 January 1988 Date of Judgment: 8 January 1988 ny! og 1 ' "