Date: 20030710
Docket: IMM-4139-02
Citation: 2003 FC 864
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, THURSDAY, THIS 10TH DAY OF JULY, 2003
PRESENT: THE HONOURABLE MADAM JUSTICE SNIDER
BETWEEN:
ABDUL RAZZAQ
(A.K.A. RAZZAQ ABDUL)
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
[Delivered from the Bench at Toronto, Ontario,
on Tuesday, July 8, 2003]
[1] Mr. Abdul Razzaq (Razzaq Abdul) (the AApplicant@), a citizen of Pakistan, arrived in Canada on May 28, 2001 and claimed Convention refugee status on an alleged fear of persecution by reason of his Shia Muslim religion.
By decision dated July 24, 2002, the Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the ABoard@) determined that the Applicant was not a Convention refugee. The Board was satisfied that, since the Applicant left Pakistan, the Sipah-e-Sehaba (the ASSP@) has been banned and that the state of Pakistan is now making serious efforts to provide reasonable protection for persons such as the Applicant. The Board found that the government of Pakistan=s commitment to protect its citizens from secular violence was durable.
The Board also had credibility concerns with respect to the Applicant=s testimony. In particular, the Board found that the Applicant=s evidence regarding his life in Pakistan from 1984 until May 2001, including the event on which the Applicant based his claim, was not credible. As a result, the Board found that the Applicant was neither a Convention refugee nor a person in need of protection.
The Applicant seeks a judicial review of the Board=s decision.
Issues
The Applicant raises the following issues:
1. Did the Board make a capricious finding of fact unsupported by the evidence that the Applicant did not have a prospective danger of persecution in Pakistan?
2. Did the Board err in concluding that the Applicant did not present credible evidence in support of his identity?
3. Did the Board err by making a decision of implausibility and negative credibility?
Analysis
For the reasons that follow, I am of the view that this application should not succeed.
Issue #1: Did the Board make a capricious finding of fact unsupported by the evidence that the Applicant did not have a prospective danger of persecution in Pakistan?
There are two parts to this issue: first, whether the Board=s conclusion that the change in Pakistan was durable was reasonable; and, secondly, whether its decision that Pakistan is able to offer protection to the Applicant was reasonable. I would answer both of these questions in the affirmative.
In the Applicant=s submission, the documentary evidence regarding the current political situation in Pakistan does not demonstrate that there is a durable and lasting change of circumstances to indicate that Shia minorities are offered protection in Pakistan (Vodopianov v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), [1995] F.C.J. No. 964 (T.D.) (QL); Tariq v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2001 FCT 540, [2001] F.C.J. No. 822 (QL)). The changes have occurred fairly recently and considering the decade of continued violence, it appears that the situation has not stabilized.
The issue of Achanged circumstances@ is a question of fact (Yusuf v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), [1995] F.C.J. No. 35 (C.A.) (QL)). Accordingly, this Court will intervene in the Board=s determination only if that determination is not supported by the evidence or otherwise is patently unreasonable (Yusuf, supra at para. 2; Tariq, supra).
In my view, the evidence before the Board supports its conclusion that the changes will be durable. Further, unlike the situation in Tariq, supra, the changes, namely the banning of the SSP and the government crackdown on that group, had taken place in Pakistan at the time of the hearing. In addition, unlike in Tariq, supra, this is not a situation involving a military coup and the establishment of a new government administration. Rather, this change is part of a larger effort by the Pakistani government, that began in 2001, to crack down on religious extremism. The documentary evidence reveals that, although sectarian violence has not been eliminated in Pakistan, progress has been made and the government is taking steps to further this progress. Accordingly, I am satisfied that the Board did not err in its conclusion in this regard.
With respect to the question of state protection, the Applicant submits that, even if this Court finds that the government of Pakistan is making efforts to curb violence, it is evident from the numbers of Shia deaths in Pakistan, the level of violence by extremist groups and the profound social tension and unrest that the government of Pakistan is unable to protect its minority Shias. As a result, the Board erred in its determination that the Applicant did not face a danger of persecution in Pakistan (Sanxhaku v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [2000] F.C.J. No. 844 (T.D.) (QL); Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration) v. Villafranca, [1992] F.C.J. No. 1189 (C.A.) (QL), leave to appeal dismissed [1993] S.C.C.A. No. 76).
In order for the Applicant to be considered a Convention refugee, he must provide clear and convincing evidence of Pakistan=s inability to afford protection. Even though it would have been preferable for the Board to conduct a more thorough analysis of the evidence regarding state protection, in my view, the Board=s findings were reasonably open to it based on the totality of the record.
The Board found that, on a balance of probabilities, the state of Pakistan was making serious efforts to provide adequate protection for citizens such as the Applicant. There is documentary evidence to support this conclusion.
The Board was satisfied that, in the event there are incidents in the future, investigations will be conducted and charges will be laid where the evidence warranted. The Board was also satisfied that, in a country such as Pakistan, the police would not disregard the directions of the President. Since the President was just given a five year extension on his term, the Board was satisfied that these changes would be durable. In reaching these conclusions, the Board did not refer to the documentary evidence or to any other evidence. However, a review of the record shows that there was substantial evidence on this point. The failure of the Board to specifically identify the evidence is not fatal to its decision.
Even if the Board did err in its state protection finding, this would not be a reviewable error since the Board=s adverse credibility finding was a sufficient basis for its rejection of the Applicant=s Convention refugee claim.
Issue #2: Did the Board err in concluding that the Applicant did not present credible evidence in support of his identity?
As indicated, the Board had a number of credibility concerns with the claim that Awould be sufficient for me to reject the claim@. One of the specific findings disputed by the Applicant is the Board=s rejection of three letters corroborating the Applicant=s role in the Shia community and the PPP and the persecution he faced in Pakistan. The Applicant submits that the Board erred in drawing a negative inference from what it termed the Aself service nature@ (sic) of the letters. In the submission of the Applicant, the Board=s reasons for disregarding these letters were general and cursory and amount to disregarding important evidence for no reason (Khan v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1998] F.C.J. No. 1591 (T.D.) (QL)).
The Applicant also submits that the Board does not possess any specialized knowledge in forensic science and should have referred the identity documents to either the RCMP or the issuing organizations in Pakistan for verification. There is no reliable evidence to support the Board=s finding that all the identity documents submitted by the Applicant are fraudulent. The Board=s failure to consider the totality of the evidence is an error of law (Tshimanga v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1995] F.C.J. No. 1512 (T.D.) (QL)).
In my view, the Board did not commit a reviewable error in its finding that the letters submitted by the Applicant did not offset its credibility concerns.
The Board did not find all of his identity documents fraudulent. Rather, the Board was satisfied, based on the identity documents tendered by the Applicant, that he was a A36-year-old Shia citizen of Pakistan@. The only identity documents whose authenticity were questioned by the Board were three letters submitted by the Applicant in support of his claim.
The Board found that these letters did not offset its credibility concerns relating to the Applicant=s testimony because of the ease with which official state documents can be forged in Pakistan and the Aself service nature@ of these letters.
This case is distinguishable from Khan, supra, where the Board refuted the statements in a letter from the applicant=s friend by simply footnoting a document which predated that letter. Campbell J. held that the Applicant was Aentitled to an analysis of why the evidence he has tendered is given no weight@ and the Board=s failure to do so amounted to Adisregarding important evidence for no reason@ (Khan, supra at para. 12). In the present case, the Board relied on the documentary evidence regarding forgeries in Pakistan and its own adverse credibility findings for its conclusion that these three letters were not sufficient to offset its credibility concerns.
The submissions of the Applicant on this issue amount to a disagreement with the manner in which the Board weighed the evidence before it, which is not a ground for judicial review (Brar v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1996] F.C.J. No. 435 (T.D.) (QL)). The Board=s conclusions on this issue are not Aso unreasonable@ that this Court should intervene in those conclusions (Aguebor v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), [1993] F.C.J. No. 732 (C.A.) (QL)).
Issue #3: Did the Board err by making a decision of implausibility and negative credibility?
Applicant=s Submissions
The Applicant submits that the Board erred in two significant findings.
First, the Board misconstrued the Applicant=s testimony that he devoted his time to religious activities from February 2000 to May 2001. The Board erred by drawing a negative inference from this statement based on the Applicant=s testimony that he suffered an incident of persecution during a meeting of the PPP during the same period. In the Applicant=s submission his statements were not contradictory as his claim was based primarily on the persecution he suffered as a result of religious activities due to his level of participation and visibility in the Shia community.
Secondly, the Board erred in failing to consider the Applicant=s explanations regarding his lack of training in the textile industry and the fact that he was paid in cash for his work. The Board relied on these erroneous findings in determining that the Applicant=s testimony was not credible and its decision was made in a perverse manner without regard to the totality of the evidence before it (Tshimanga, supra).
In my view, the Board did not err in its negative credibility conclusion.
The Board supported its negative credibility conclusion regarding the Applicant=s life in Pakistan from 1984 until May 2001 with at least five findings, only two of which the Applicant disputes.
The Board found it implausible that a person with no qualifications or experience in the textile industry would be employed as a supervisor and that a ten-year employee would have no records that could be produced at the hearing to support this employment. At the hearing, the Applicant explained that he was paid in cash and his income was not high enough to require him to pay taxes. The Applicant submits that the Board erred by disregarding his explanations. I disagree. Contrary to the submissions of the Applicant, the Board appears to have considered his explanations, but concluded that they were implausible. The Board is not obligated to accept the explanations provided by the Applicant and is entitled to weigh those explanations along with the rest of the evidence before it (Tshimanga, supra; Aguebor, supra). It was not patently unreasonable for the Board to conclude that it was implausible that someone with no qualifications or experience in the textile industry would be hired to supervise the employees. It was not patently unreasonable for the Board to find it implausible that the Applicant, who apparently worked for the same company in the textile industry for ten years, would have no evidence to support that employment. Finally, the Board was entitled to rely on this implausibility finding for its adverse credibility conclusion (Alizadeh v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), [1993] F.C.J. No. 11 (C.A. (QL)).
The second of the findings of concern to the Applicant is that the Board found the Applicant=s testimony that he did only religious activities from February 2000 until May 2001 to not be consistent with his testimony that he was attacked while at a meeting of the PPP in January 2001. In my view, the testimony regarding the Applicant=s participation in political activities from February 2000 until May 2001 is inconsistent with his repeated statements that he was only involved in religious activities during that time. Although the focus of the Applicant=s claim was his fear of persecution on religious grounds, the events of January 28, 2001 and the days immediately following that date are still relevant to the claim and are not the type of events that one would expect an individual to forget or fail to mention when describing what happened during a particular time period. As a result, I am of the view that the Board did not misconstrue the Applicant=s testimony on this issue or err by drawing a negative inference from the inconsistencies in this testimony (Tshimanga, supra; Aguebor, supra).
Therefore, the Board=s credibility findings were reasonably open to it on the evidence before it and the Applicant=s submissions amount to a disagreement with the manner in which the evidence was weighed, which is not a ground for judicial review (Brar, supra).
Conclusion
In conclusion, I am satisfied that the decision of the Board was not made in a perverse or capricious manner or without regard to the evidence before it and that it should stand.
Question for Certification
Neither party proposed a question for certification. None will be certified.
AJudith A. Snider@
______________________________
Judge
FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA
Names of Counsel and Solicitors of Record
DOCKET: IMM-4139-02
STYLE OF CAUSE: ABDUL RAZZAQ
(a.k.a. RAZZAQ ABDUL)
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF
CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
PLACE OF HEARING: TORONTO
DATE OF HEARING: TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2003
REASONS FOR ORDER: THE HONOURABLE MADAM JUSTICE SNIDER
DATED: THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2003
APPEARANCES: LANI GOZLAN
FOR APPLICANT
NEETA LOGSETTY
FOR RESPONDENT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
MAX BERGER & ASSOCIATES
BARRISTERS & SOLICITORS
1033 BAY STREET
SUITE 207
TORONTO, ONTARIO
M5S 3A5
MORRIS ROSENBERG
DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
ONTARIO REGIONAL OFFICE
130 KING STREET, BOX 36
TORONTO, ONTARIO M5X LK6
FOR RESPONDENT