Ponnudurai v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural Affairs [2000] FCA 91

FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Ponnudurai v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs [2000] FCA 91 IMMIGRATION – appeal from Refugee Review Tribunal – young Tamil male born in Jaffna who had lived some years in Colombo claiming fear of persecution there by security forces – effect of rejection of his evidence of particular arrests in the past – whether the Tribunal failed to take account of a core consideration, namely, substantial evidence that Tamils of his profile were generally at risk of persecution in Colombo – whether the Tribunal overlooked evidence that the situation in Colombo had changed since the applicant was living there, so far as he was concerned – a well-founded fear does not require an applicant to have actually suffered personal harm – whether the Tribunal failed to apply the "real chance" test properly – whether the Tribunal erred in asking, not whether the applicant was at risk, but whether he was "particularly" at risk or one of those "most at risk" – whether the past events upon the basis of which an applicant's future is to be predicted can be confined to those in which he was personally concerned – whether the Tribunal should have considered the degree of probability that the alleged events had occurred, and the relation of that to the "What if I am wrong?" test. Migration Act 1958 (Cwth), s 476 Paramananthan v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (1998) 160 ALR 24 applied Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Guo (1997) 191 CLR 559 applied Labed v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs [2000] FCA 35 applied Sellamuthu v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs [1999] FCA 247 applied Sivarasa v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (Burchett J, unreported, 11 June 1998) applied Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Wu Shan Liang (1996) 185 CLR 259 applied Perampalam v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (1999) 55 ALD 431 applied Mohamed v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (1998) 51 ALD 666 applied El Merhabi v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs [2000] FCA 42 applied Chan v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (1989) 169 CLR 379 applied Logenthiran v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (Wilcox, Lindgren and Merkel JJ, unreported, 21 December 1998) applied Chetwynd-Talbot v Chetwynd-Talbot [1963] P 436 referred to Howarth v Howarth [1964] P 6 referred to Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Al Husaini [1999] FCA 1307 referred to