An Afghan truck driver could return to his former career as a jeweller to avoid Taliban persecution, the High Court has heard.
The case, which has implications for Australia's interpretation of the United Nations refugee convention, is being heard by the court's full bench in Canberra.
It centres on a 51-year-old Hazara truck driver who feared Taliban persecution for transporting building materials for the government and foreign agencies.
The man came to Australia on an asylum seeker boat in 2012 and his family remains in Kabul.
The federal coalition government believes the man could safely return to Kabul to work as a silver jeweller, which was his occupation from 1977 to 2001.
In 2007 he became a self-employed truck driver travelling between Kabul, Ghazni and Jaghori.
He claims the Taliban stopped him many times out on the road and warned him not to transport building and construction materials.
In November 2011, he said he received a written death threat from the Taliban warning he would be killed for his association with the government.
Representing the Commonwealth, Geoffrey Johnson SC told the court the man hadn't been carrying building materials to make a political statement. His motivation had been to earn money.
The danger to the asylum seeker was limited to only particular roads outside the Afghan capital.
"If he stays in Kabul he's safe," Mr Johnson told the court on Thursday.
Truck driving did not go to a core aspect of the man's identity, beliefs or lifestyle, so it was reasonable that he could change his job, the court heard.
But the asylum seeker's lawyer Stephen Lloyd SC argued that under the refugee convention there were no voluntary behaviour modification provisions in the test on whether a person had a reasonable chance of being persecuted.
He argued the avoidance activity of giving up truck driving might not work.
The asylum seeker claims his physical condition means he can't return to jewellery making and lacks the capital to do so.
The hearing continues.
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