Background
FBU20 and his wife, FBT20, are Bangladeshi citizens. FBU20 applied for a Protection (Class XA) (Subclass 866) visa in February 2018, shortly before his temporary skilled visa expired; FBT20 was included as a secondary applicant and made no independent protection claim.
FBU20 claimed that his marriage had been kept secret from his own family, and that his father-in-law later threatened consequences if he returned to Bangladesh, including enforcing a 50 million Bangladeshi Taka mahr obligation, legal action, and interference with his ability to earn a living. He did not claim a risk of physical harm, but alleged mental anguish and financial consequences. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal rejected the account as not credible and affirmed the visa refusal. The Federal Circuit and Family Court dismissed judicial review.
The Court’s Holding
Justice McDonald dismissed the appeal. The Court held that the primary judge made no error in finding that the Tribunal had not committed jurisdictional error. The Tribunal’s adverse credibility findings about the asserted secret marriage and resulting family dispute had an evident and intelligible justification.
The Tribunal was entitled to consider the unusual features it identified in FBU20’s account, country information about marriage practices in Bangladesh, and the timing of the protection-visa application. It was not required to contact family members, friends, or FBU20’s employer to investigate possible corroboration. A reference to 2011 rather than 2017 was plainly a typographical error and not jurisdictional error.
The Court also held that the Tribunal applied the correct statutory tests: a real chance of serious harm for refugee protection and a real risk of significant harm for complementary protection. Once the Tribunal rejected the factual premise that the marriage was secret and that the father-in-law disapproved of it, it was not required to separately assess the claimed financial, imprisonment, or mental-health consequences said to flow from that premise.
Key Takeaways
- A tribunal may assess credibility using country information, personal evidence, and the timing of a protection-visa application together.
- Judicial review does not permit a court to re-decide factual credibility disputes merely because an applicant offers another interpretation of the evidence.
- A tribunal need not investigate or seek corroborative evidence not put before it by a protection-visa applicant.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the high threshold for establishing legal unreasonableness in migration judicial review. Findings may be adverse, and based partly on country information, without being jurisdictionally defective where the tribunal gives a rational and intelligible explanation grounded in the material before it.
The appellants were ordered to pay the Minister’s appeal costs, fixed at $4,200.