Date: 19990609
Docket: IMM-3243-98
Between :
SONIA LAURA BARRAGAN VELAZQUEZ
OMAR PEDRO RODRIGUEZ BARRAGAN
MARLENE ALEJANDRA RODRIGUEZ BARRAGAN
Applicants
- and -
MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
PINARD, J. :
[1] The applicants seek judicial review of a decision of the Refugee Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the Board) dated June 9, 1998, in which the Board determined they were not Convention refugees as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Immigration Act (the Act). The principal applicant, Sonia Laura Barragan Velazquez, and her two children, are all citizens of Mexico. The claim of the children is based on that of their mother's.
[2] The Board found that the principal applicant did not have a well-founded fear of persecution for the following reasons:
| - she had not advanced clear and convincing proof of the state of Mexico's inability to protect her in order to rebut the presumption that Mexico is capable of providing protection; |
| - she had a viable internal flight alternative (IFA) in another part of the country. |
[3] As regards the question of state protection, the Board wrote the following:
| The panel finds that the claimant has not advanced clear and convincing proof of the state's inability to protect her in order to rebut the presumption that Mexico is capable of providing protection. |
| The claimant was asked if she approached the police or any other agency for protection and assistance. She stated that she did not go to the police because they are corrupt. She said that there are other agencies and associations set up to assist persons such as herself but that "they don't help". The claimant also stated that because Daniel Prieto-Prieto is a powerful bank official and has relatives who work for the municipal government, the police would not have acted on her behalf. The claimant stated that only her sister knew that Daniel Prieto-Prieto had threatened to kill her by saying "accidents can happen". |
| Although the claimant may have a subjective feeling that the police would not assist her, based upon her very unfortunate experiences with Daniel Prieto-Prieto and her resultant fragile phsychological (sic) condition, the panel finds that the claimant has not discharged the onus that her reports of violence, abuse and threats would not be dealt with appropriately by the authorities in Mexico. Accordingly, the presumption that "... persecution will be likely, and the fear well-founded, if there is an absence of state protection" [Canada (Attorney General) v. Ward, [1993] 2 S.C.R. 689, at 722] is not satisfied in this claim. |
[4] The Federal Court of Appeal in M.E.I. v. Villafranca (1992), 150 N.R. 232 stated as follows regarding a state's ability to protect its citizens at page 233:
| The burden of showing that one is not able to avail oneself of the protection of one's own state is not easily satisfied. The test is an objective one and involves the claimant showing either that he is physically prevented from seeking his government's aid (clearly not the case here) or that the government itself is in some way prevented from giving it. |
| No government that makes any claim to democratic values or protection of human rights can guarantee the protection of all of its citizens at all times. Thus, it is not enough for a claimant merely to show that his government has not always been effective at protecting persons in his particular situation. . . . |
| (My emphasis.) |
[5] In Kadenko et al. v. Canada (Solliciteur général) (1996), 206 N.R. 272, Décary J.A. for the Federal Court of Appeal also gave similar reasons at page 274:
| When the state in question is a democratic state, as in the case at bar, the claimant must do more than simply show that he or she went to see some members of the police force and that his or her efforts were unsuccessful. The burden of proof that rests on the claimant is, in a way, directly proportional to the level of democracy in the state in question: the more democratic the state's institutions, the more the claimant must have done to exhaust all the courses of action open to him or her. . . . |
[6] Applying those principles to the facts established by the evidence in the present case, I am of the opinion that the applicants have not discharged their burden of showing that the inferences drawn by the Refugee Division, which is a specialized tribunal, could not reasonably have been drawn. The Board considered the fact that the applicant had not approached the state for protection or assistance before leaving Mexico, as well as her explanations for this decision. Moreover, the Board did consider the issue of state protection in light of the principal applicant's particular psychological state, including the evidence that the principal applicant was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression. In that context, the fact that the Board did not cite any evidence showing that the Mexican state was able to protect its citizens is not sufficient to justify the intervention of this Court. Indeed, the Board is presumed to have considered all of the evidence before it (see, i.e., Hassan v. Canada (M.E.I.) (1992), 147 N.R. 317 at 318), and indeed, there was documentary evidence before the Board showing the governmental initiatives and resources for the benefit of the victims of domestic violence in Mexico.
[7] Under such circumstances, I cannot find that it was unreasonable for the Board to conclude as it did. In my view, the Board could reasonably presume that the state of Mexico was able to protect its citizens in the absence of a complete breakdown of the state apparatus, as established by the Supreme Court of Canada in Canada (Attorney General) v. Ward, [1993] 2 S.C.R. 689 at 723.
[8] As the Board's finding that state protection was available and adequate is sufficient, in itself, to find that the applicants are not Convention refugees, it will not be necessary to deal with the Board's additional finding of the existence of an IFA.
[9] Consequently, the application for judicial review is dismissed.
JUDGE
OTTAWA, ONTARIO
June 9, 1999