FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA Al Ruwafi v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural Affairs [2001] FCA 1268 MIGRATION - Refugee Review Tribunal - refusal to set aside decision refusing protection visa - application for order of review of Tribunal's decision - no ground for review disclosed - application dismissed. AHAMED AL RUWAFI v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS W 136 of 2001 FRENCH J 3 SEPTEMBER 2001 PERTH IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA WESTERN AUSTRALIA DISTRICT REGISTRY W136 of 2001 BETWEEN: AHAMED AL RUWAFI Applicant AND: MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS Respondent JUDGE: FRENCH J DATE OF ORDER: 3 SEPTEMBER 2001 WHERE MADE: PERTH THE COURT ORDERS THAT: 1. The application is dismissed. 2. The applicant is to pay the respondent's costs of the application. Note: Settlement and entry of orders is dealt with in Order 36 of the Federal Court Rules. IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA WESTERN AUSTRALIA DISTRICT REGISTRY W136 of 2001 BETWEEN: AHAMED AL RUWAFI Applicant AND: MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS Respondent JUDGE: FRENCH J DATE: 3 SEPTEMBER 2001 PLACE: PERTH REASONS FOR JUDGMENT 1 Ahamed Al Ruwafi arrived in Australia by boat on 11 July 2000 without a visa. He was interviewed by an officer of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs on 17 July. That interview was conducted with the help of an interpreter. At that interview he was asked to give reasons why he should not be removed from Australia. He told the departmental officer that he originally came from Tunisia and from 1989 until 1991 he studied in Syria. When he returned to Tunisia he continued to study there until 1993. Later he worked as a supervisor at Pizza Hut. 2 He was asked why he had left Tunisia. He said there was a lot of unemployment and it was hard to find work. When asked why he came to Australia he said Tunisia was all right, that there were no problems but he had always wanted to come to Australia to work and to help his family who were poor. He was asked if he had any reasons for not wanting to return to Tunisia. He said he had missed his family and was concerned for their welfare and wanted to work to help them. When he was asked if there were any other reasons why he did not want to return to Tunisia, he said there were not. He told the officer interviewing him that he had travelled to Indonesia on a genuine Tunisian passport. 3 He did not claim to be a refugee within the meaning of the Refugees Convention during this interview. However, in October 2000 he made an application for a protection visa which was prepared with the assistance of a migration agent. In that submission he said he had gone to Syria to study in 1989. He said while he was there he was forced to join the Syrian Baath Party in order to get a place at the university and so that he would not be watched by Syrian security. He said all Tunisian students in Syria were required to join the Syrian Students Union which was a part of the Baath Party. He said that when he returned from his studies in Syria in 1991 he was detained at the airport in Tunisia. He was questioned by the Department of State Security about his decision to join the Baath Party. He said that he was tortured for two days and detained for a total of two months. He was released on bail after making a personal declaration that he would leave the Baath Party. His Tunisian passport was confiscated. He said there had been eight Tunisian students studying in Syria with Tunisian government scholarships and they had been treated differently from him. He also claimed that he had been expelled from the Syrian Baath Party several months after he returned to Tunisia. 4 He also said in support of his application that after arriving back in Tunisia he obtained a job with Pizza Hut Restaurants. He became a supervisor. In December 1999 the restaurant where he worked was raided by police and he was taken to the Department of Security. He was charged with working in a banned political organisation and with planning to overthrow the Tunisian government. 5 When he was interviewed by an officer of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs in connection with his protection visa application, he said he had been detained in 1999 because the 1991 charges had never been sorted out. The officer remarked that nine years seemed like a long time for investigations into his case to continue. Mr Al Ruwafi said to the officer, however, that he was under security surveillance or watch, and there was a crackdown on opposition parties like the Baath Party. He also claimed that he was tortured while in detention. He was released after a month on condition that he report to the authorities every day. He said his father was also threatened. He told the departmental officer that after this he decided to leave Tunisia. He bought a false passport. He left through the airport and travelled to Australia by way of Jordan and Indonesia. While in Jakarta he telephoned his family and found out that his father, his uncle and his brother had been detained and interrogated because he had escaped. 6 The departmental officer, the delegate of the minister, refused his application for a protection visa. Mr Al Ruwafi applied for a review of that decision on 13 December 2000. The Tribunal wrote to him in January 2001 advising that his failure to mention any of the problems when he was interviewed for the first time after arriving in Australia raised a doubt about whether his claims were genuine or not. He was provided with a copy of the tape‑recording of the initial interview. He was invited to comment on it when he came before the Tribunal. 7 On 25 February he provided a written submission to the Tribunal. In that written submission he said the Baath Party was the second most powerful party in Tunisia. He said it was banned and all of its activities were carried out in secret. He said it received a lot of support from the Syrian government and it was controlled from an office in Syria. He said the Tunisian government watched the activities of Tunisian students in Syria. It arrested those who were politically active when they returned to Tunisia. This, he said, is what happened to him. 8 In addition to Mr Al Ruwafi's own written submission, his migration agent provided a submission. In further support of Mr Al Ruwafi's application a number of documents were provided to the Tribunal. One was a copy of a Tunisian passport which had been issued on 18 December 1986 and expired on 17 December 1991. The passport was stamped with the word "Annule". Another was a fax dated 7 February signed by two people who said they knew Mr Al Ruwafi. The fax said they confirmed that he was accused of belonging to the Baath Socialist Arabic Party. It also said that party opposes the government of Tunisia. The two people who signed that fax from Tunisia said they were still under strong surveillance and inhumane treatment. 9 Another document produced was a fax signed by a Mr Al Sultani who said he was the head of Pizza Hut Restaurants. According to that fax, Mr Al Ruwafi was detained on 25 December 1999 because he was a member of the Baath Party. The fax was handwritten and did not have any letterhead. Three other documents were provided. One from the World Organisation Against Torture listed human rights abuses in Tunisia. Another was from the Arab Commission for Human Rights. Neither made any mention of the Baath Party. A third document was a copy of the index to Amnesty International's documents on Tunisia. 10 Mr Al Ruwafi attended a hearing of the Tribunal on 2 March. He was questioned at that hearing about his claims. The Tribunal told him during the hearing that it had difficulty accepting his claims. The matters put to him by the Tribunal are set out in its reasons, and I do not need to repeat them here. In its findings the Tribunal did not accept Mr Al Ruwafi's claims. It referred to the fact that he had made no mention of political problems in Tunisia when he was first interviewed on arriving in Australia. In fact he told the Tribunal that he had not had any problems in Tunisia and had come to Australia to find work and to help his family. The Tribunal did not believe that someone would travel all the way from North Africa to Australia to seek protection from political persecution and fail to mention that fact. 11 Mr Al Ruwafi had told the Tribunal that he did not mention his problems in Tunisia when he was first interviewed because he was afraid that information would be passed to the government of Tunisia and his family might face problems. The Tribunal did not accept this explanation which he gave. The Tribunal listened to the tape‑recording of the interview. Contrary to Mr Al Ruwafi's evidence he was not told that information might be sought from the authorities in Tunisia. The Tribunal believed that when first interviewed he gave a true account of his reasons for coming to Australia. It decided that what Mr Al Ruwafi had done was to make up claims of political involvement and detention in order to try to obtain a protection visa. 12 While the Tribunal accepted that some parts of what he had to say might be true, it did not believe that the Tunisian government was ever really interested in him. In particular, the Tribunal did not believe that he left Tunisia because he was afraid of persecution for political reasons. The Tribunal in its reasons discussed the evidence that Mr Al Ruwafi had given. 13 In relation to the documents which he produced, it found that they were sent at his request to try and support his claim for a protection visa. As for the fax from his former employer, the Tribunal said that there was a strong indication that it was not a genuine document. The Tribunal also rejected the suggestion that he would be at risk of persecution in Tunisia because he had applied for a protection visa in Australia. 14 As I have explained to Mr Al Ruwafi, this Court can only set aside a decision of the Tribunal on the grounds set out in the Migration Act 1958 (Cth). Those grounds do not allow the Court to interfere with the Tribunal decision just because the Tribunal has taken a particular view of the facts of the case. What Mr Al Ruwafi has put to this Court does not show any grounds for interfering with the Tribunal's decision, and on my reading of the Tribunal's decision I cannot see any grounds for interfering with it. That does not mean that the Court thinks the Tribunal was right about the facts. The Court cannot change a decision of the Tribunal even if it thinks the Tribunal was wrong on the facts. The application will be dismissed and Mr Al Ruwafi will have to pay the costs of the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. I certify that the preceding fourteen (14) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment herein of the Honourable Justice French. Associate: Dated: September 2001 The Applicant appeared on his own behalf. Counsel for the Respondent: Ms L B Price Solicitor for the Respondent: Australian Government Solicitor Date of Hearing: 3 September 2001 Date of Judgment: 3 September 2001