CAT/C/49/D/417/2010 5.2 Counsel challenges the State party’s argument that the complaint is inadmissible for lack of substantiation of a foreseeable, real and personal risk of torture upon return of the complainant to China, and refers to the evidence already brought to the attention of the Minister or Ministerial Intervention Unit of the immigration department. She maintains that the following supporting documents present compelling evidence that the complainant has suffered serious persecution and fears similar persecution on his return to China: (a) the notice of release from Zhangshi Labour Reform Centre, confirming that the complainant had been imprisoned from 10 August 1999 to 20 August 2000; (b) the medical report of the Fourth Hospital affiliated with China Medical University;16 (c) the report by the Commonwealth Ombudsman submitted to the Secretary of the immigration department, which indicates that during counselling sessions with the Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors, the complainant spoke of his torture and trauma in China and a report was sent informing the immigration department that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder; (d) the ministerial intervention request dated 23 July 2009 containing a description of the torture the complainant feared if he were to be removed to China, which is based on the torture he suffered during his year of hard labour and beatings as a prisoner in the “re-education through labour camp”; (e) the second ministerial intervention request dated 9 September 2009, in which the complainant reiterates his suffering and gives more details of his year-long persecution in the reeducation through labour camp; (f) the ministerial intervention request dated 20 December 2009, containing more details of the complainant’s ongoing trauma due to his detention for one year in the re-education through labour camp; (g) the diagram of the complainant’s scars from 1999 (dated 10 September 2009). 5.3 Counsel further submits that an application for protection is first decided by the immigration department officer who is appointed as the delegate of the Minister. In the event the delegate refuses the application for protection, an application for review can be made to the Refugee Review Tribunal. She refers to the Tribunal’s findings of 24 March 2004, as summarized by the State party in its observations, that due to the lack of detail in the complainant’s claims and without the opportunity to test the claims at a hearing, the Tribunal was not prepared to accept that he was a Falun Gong practitioner and had come to the adverse attention of the Chinese authorities as a result of those activities. Counsel claims that the Tribunal came to this conclusion despite the absence of any new information or explanation other than the information before the delegate of the immigration department, which came to a different view, accepting the complainant’s practice of Falun Gong. Neither the lack of detail in his claims nor his absence from the Refugee Review Tribunal hearing are justifications for finding that he was not a Falun Gong practitioner. 5.4 In response to the State party’s statement that the domestic legal system offers a robust process of merits and judicial review to ensure that any error made by an initial decision maker can be corrected, counsel submits that judicial review is a very limited process and the above statement does not accurately reflect the reality that the Federal Magistrates Court has its hands tied in the process of judicial review. Nor do the discretionary and non-appellable powers of the Minister provide a robust process for merits review. The privative clause in part 8, division 1 of the Migration Act 1958 limits the Federal Courts to deciding jurisdictional error (legal error) and excludes courts from reviewing whether an asylum seeker is or is not a refugee under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. If jurisdictional error is found, the matter is remitted to another 16 8 See footnote 4 above.

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