A Federal court has usurped the role of a tribunal set up to assess claimants for protection visa.
The court has decided that a method of determining the truth of a claimant was faulty.
There are methods that aren't faulty? What was important, spending more money?
Friday, July 20, 2007
Doing Things The Right Way or Doing the Right Things?
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Refugee Tribunal hit for relying on Wikipedia
By Elizabeth Gosch and Alana Buckley-Carr
THE Refugee Review Tribunal has been slammed by the Federal Magistrates Court for relying on the website Wikipedia to reject a protection visa.
The Federal Magistrates Court set aside the tribunal's decision to refuse the visa on the ground it had used unreliable information.
In May last year, the tribunal refused an Iranian national's application for a protection visa because it did not accept his claim he had converted to Christianity - a move that put his life in danger in predominantly Muslim Iran.
The tribunal based its decision on information and material sourced from a Wikipedia website, www.armeniapedia.org.
Applying for the protection visa, the Iranian said he had begun developing anti-Islamic thoughts after the 1979 Iranian Revolution and had been introduced to the Christian faith by friends in about 2004.
He said he used to sell Christian books to raise extra cash and attend the Armenian Church in Rusht.
Asked what would happen if he returned to Iran, the man said: "I will be arrested and killed, firstly for selling these books and secondly for converting to Christianity."
The tribunal rejected the man's claim on the basis he did not know "notable ritual aspects" of the Armenian Church.
"The applicant claimed to have been to an Armenian Church," the tribunal said.
"At the Armenian Apostolic Church the applicant would have witnessed notable ritual aspects of the service that go beyond singing and prayer and ought to have been able to describe these.
"He was not able to do so."
The tribunal relied upon information sourced from the Wikipedia website to assess the applicant's knowledge of religious ceremonies.
In a decision handed down last month, federal magistrate Murray McInnis said the tribunal misinterpreted the applicant's claim to have attended an Armenian Church to be a claim to have attended the Armenian Apostolic Church.
"It was entirely unclear on the material whether the applicant had claimed to have attended an Apostolic or an Evangelical Armenian Church," Mr McInnis said.
"The tribunal acted without or in excess of jurisdiction by taking into account an irrelevant consideration.
"The tribunal took into account an irrelevant consideration, namely information/material contained in the 111.armeniapedia.org website.
"The Tribunal's reliance on the information/material contained in www.armeniapedia.org was illogical and/or irrational and/or unreasonable."
The protection visa application will return to the tribunal.
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