PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Barnes
BETWEEN:
Applicant
AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT AND JUDGMENT
[1] This is an application for judicial review by Vasanthan Krishnapillai from a decision of the Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board dated May 30, 2006. In that decision, Mr. Krishnapillai’s claim to protection was denied.
Background
[2] Mr. Krishnapillai is a Tamil from the Jaffna area of Sri Lanka. He came to Canada in 2004 with a circuitous routing through Singapore, Italy and the Dominican Republic. His claim to Refugee Protection was premised upon a history of harassment by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and abuse at the hands of the Sri Lankan authorities. His primary complaints of persecution concerned two incidents of detention and physical abuse meted out to him by the Sri Lankan army in late 2003 and early 2004. He described those events in his Personal Information Form (PIF) as follows:
In September, 2003 I was arrested at the Manipay army checkpoint. I was accused of being a Tiger supporter, interrogated and beaten by the soldiers. I was detained for approximately one month. I was released through the intervention of the gramaseveka (village headman) and the International Red Cross.
In January, 2004 there was another round-up conducted by the army in our area. I was picked up along with some other Tamil young men and taken to the Ilavalai camp. There I was beaten by the soldiers and scarred to my left shoulder by a soldier who cut me with a knife. I was also injured when another soldier struck the butt of his gun on my right leg.
[3] Mr. Krishnapillai’s PIF described a worsening security situation in Sri Lanka and a perception that the LTTE would initiate a new recruitment drive for members. He also asserted that his father and brother had been detained as Tamil suspects by the Sri Lankan army in March 2003 and, as of his departure to Canada in August 2004, they had yet to be released.
[4] It was on the strength of the above history that Mr. Krishnapillai sought refugee protection.
The Board Decision
[5] The Board rejected Mr. Krishnapillai’s testimony and described him as “devoid of credibility”. That negative determination was based upon numerous inconsistencies and omissions in the evidence he offered, including the following:
a. serious contradictions between the PIF narrative and his testimony as to where and when he was harassed by the LTTE;
b. a similar contradiction as to the dates when he was attending school in Sri Lanka;
c. a contradiction between his testimony that he had not suffered any problems with the Sri Lankan army before 2003 and his PIF which described regular mistreatment at army checkpoints involving verbal abuse, detentions for several hours (sometimes under the hot sun) and thefts;
d. a contradiction between his Port Of Entry (POE) interview where he referred to being arrested with his father and brother in March 2003 and his testimony to the Board that he had not been arrested at that time;
e. the failure to mention in his PIF that he had been tortured with cigarette burns;
f. a contradiction between his PIF and his testimony about whether his father and brother had been released from custody before he left Sri Lanka for Canada;
g. significant contradictions with respect to the details of his travel arrangements to come to Canada along with the absence of verifying travel documentation;
h. a failure to provide available corrobating documentation from the Red Cross about his arrests.
[6] When Mr. Krishnapillai was confronted with the above evidentiary problems, he offered a number of explanations including illness, a failure to understand the questions posed, confusion, interpretation errors and a refusal by the Immigration Officer during his POE interview to allow him to provide “all the details”. The Board rejected all of his explanations and found that he had not been subjected to harassment by the LTTE and that he had never been arrested by Sri Lankan authorities. Having rejected Mr. Krishnapillai’s story of persecution, the Board found it unnecessary to analyze his alleged fear of return to Sri Lanka based on the general conditions described in the documentary evidence.
Issues
[7] a. What is the standard of review for the issues raised on behalf of Mr. Krishnapillai?
b. Did the Board err in its credibility assessment?
c. Did the Board err by failing to consider Mr. Krishnapillai’s claim in light of his status as a Tamil male ostensibly from northern Sri Lanka?
Analysis
[8] Counsel for Mr. Krishnapillai challenged two aspects of the Board’s decision. She argued that the Board’s credibility findings were flawed because, in a number of respects, the Board failed to account for his “reasonable” explanations for the identified testimonial inconsistencies and omissions. Secondly, she contended that, even if Mr. Krishnapillai’s credibility had been undermined, the Board had an obligation to consider whether he faced a generalized risk of harm by virtue of his status as a young Tamil male.
[9] The Board’s credibility findings are entitled to the most deferential standard of review, that being patent unreasonableness. A patently unreasonable decision is one which leaves no real possibility of doubting that the decision is defective or is so flawed that no amount of curial deference can justify letting it stand: see Law Society of New Brunswick v. Ryan, [2003] 1 S.C.R. 247, 2003 SCC 20.
[10] The second issue raised by Mr. Krishnapillai is one of mixed fact and law. The question is whether and on what evidence the Board may be required to conduct a separate section 97 analysis under the Immigration Refugee and Protection Act (IRPA), S.C. 2001, c.27, notwithstanding its rejection of a claimant’s credibility. On this issue, it is unnecessary to conduct a pragmatic and functional analysis because I can identify no error in the Board’s decision.
[11] The Board’s credibility findings were all well supported by the evidence before it. Mr. Krishnapillai was a very poor witness with respect to virtually every aspect of his claim history. His testimony was full of contradictions and his resulting explanations were, on their face, mostly unconvincing. Even in those few instances where an explanation might have been accepted as plausible, it was open to the Board to find otherwise – particularly given the cumulative weight of his excuses. Here I accept Mr. Anderson’s argument that the mere existence of a reasonable explanation for an evidentiary inconsistency does not make the Board’s contrary finding patently unreasonable. The same is true for the interpretation or weighing of evidence by the Board. The fact that another inference was open to be drawn on the evidence does not mean that the Board’s evidentiary assessment was flawed.
[12] The Board’s assessment of Mr. Krishnapillai’s credibility was not only reasonable in this case, it was essentially inevitable.
[13] With respect to the second issue raised on behalf of Mr. Krishnapillai, I accept that there are situations where the Board’s adverse credibility conclusions do not negate its obligation to consider other material corroborating evidence: see Seevaratnam v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1999), 167 F.T.R. 130, [1999] F.C.J. No. 694 at para. 11; Voytik v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [2004] F.C.J. No. 50, 2004 FC 66 at para. 20. That is not, however, the situation here. The only arguable evidence of that type in this record is a letter (apparently written by an acquaintance) who had “learnt” that Mr. Krishnapillai was “under the trail of the Security Forces as well as under the anti LTTE Groups”. Nothing in the letter indicates where the information came from and it contains no corroboration for the specific incidents of persecution alleged by Mr. Krishnapillai. Given the content of this letter, it was not an error for the Board to ignore it in the decision.
[14] I also do not agree that there is an absolute obligation for the Board to consider the generalized risk situation where it has categorically rejected a claimant’s evidence of personal risk. If a claimant’s own experiences over several years of domicile did not give rise to any form of persecution, it is difficult to see how a personal risk could otherwise be reasonably manifest absent some change in the general risk situation in the area. On this point, I would adopt the views expressed by Justice Paul Rouleau in Ahmad v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [2004] F.C.J. 995, 2004 FC 808 at para. 22 where he stated:
Thus the assessment of the applicant’s fear must be made in concreto, and not from an abstract and general perspective. The fact that the documentary evidence illustrates unequivocally the systematic and generalized violation of human rights in Pakistan is simply not sufficient to establish the specific and individualized fear of persecution of the applicant in particular. Absent the least proof that might link the general documentary evidence to the applicant’s specific circumstances, I conclude that the Board did not err in the way it analyzed the applicant’s claim under section 97.
[15] Even if I am wrong on this point, I do not think that the outcome would have been any different had the Board gone on to analyze the general country condition evidence concerning the situation of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The evidence tendered on that issue was not of sufficient import that any different outcome could have been expected once Mr. Krishnapillai’s story of persecution collapsed: see Bouaouni v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [2003] F.C.J. No. 1540, 2003 FC 1211 at para. 42.
[16] In the result, this application for judicial review is dismissed. Neither party proposed a certified question and no issue of general importance arises on this record.
JUDGMENT
THIS COURT ADJUDGES that this application for judicial review is dismissed.
FEDERAL COURT
NAME OF COUNSEL AND SOLICITORS OF RECORD
DOCKET: IMM-3928-06
STYLE OF CAUSE: VASANTHAN KRISHNAPILLAI
v.
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
PLACE OF HEARING: TORONTO, ONTARIO
APPEARANCES:
Helen P. Luzius FOR THE APPLICANT
Martin Anderson FOR THE RESPONDENT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
Helen Luzius
Barrister & Solicitor FOR THE APPLICANT
Toronto, Ontario
John H. Sims, Q.C. FOR THE RESPONDENT
Deputy Attorney General of Canada
Toronto, Ontario