Court rejects man’s refugee status- back to Lebanon for him
Of course, the Tribunal finding that the Applicant failed to live in Australian as a gay man was but one of its findings as to whether the Applicant was a homosexual person. His vague account of his past sexual encounters, his failure to articulate any emotional aspect of discovering his homosexuality, and his inconsistent conduct of returning to Lebanon after his earlier visit to Australia, were others. Each went to the conclusion arrived at by the Tribunal. In its consideration of the matter, the Tribunal asked of the Applicant how it was that he lived openly as a homosexual in Australia? There was no imposition by the Tribunal of a criteria or a particular measure that the Applicant had to live up to. On a number of occasions the Tribunal attempted to elicit from the Applicant those matters which for the Applicant meant, that he lived openly as a gay man in Australia. The Tribunal did not impose its own criteria on the Applicant, but rather attempted to gain a factual context for the Applicant’s claims. The Tribunal asked of the Applicant:-
- “what do you mean by that? You’ve given these broad explanations. What about your life means you were living as a gay man?”
Contrary to the Applicant’s assertions, I find there was no “relevant test” applied by the Tribunal comprising its own arbitrary criteria, but rather an eliciting of relevant information from the Applicant, and a putting to him of matters that the Tribunal had difficult in accepting. There was no illogicality attending the decision. The Tribunal made a number of factual findings on the evidence before it which lead it to a logical conclusion about the Applicant’s claims.
