Date: 20000308
Docket: IMM-6489-98
Ottawa, Ontario, this 8th day of March 2000
PRESENT: THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE PELLETIER
BETWEEN:
ALENA CONKOVA, IRMA CONKOVA,
ONDREJ CONKA and KRISTINA LORENCOVA
Applicants
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER AND ORDER
PELLETIER J.
[1] A newspaper article whose caption is "A Czech woman becomes Roma" seems an unlikely foundation for a refugee claim for a family claiming to be persecuted gypsies from the Czech Republic. But it is upon that article and another like it that Alena Conkova ("Ms. Conkova"), her mother and her children rely in making a claim for refugee status. Ms. Conkova, whose mother is not a Roma but who was married to one, does not look like a stereotypical Roma (though it said that her son does) and does not speak the Roma language. The Convention Refugee Determination Division panel (CRDD) which heard their claim did not believe that they were Roma and dismissed their claim. Ms. Conkova asks for the Court to set that decision aside on the ground that the CRDD did not give any weight to the newspaper articles and other documentary evidence which support her claim.
[2] Ms. Conkova claims refugee status on her own behalf and on behalf of her two children, Ondrej Conka and Kristina Lorencova. Her mother, Irma Conkova, advances a claim as well based upon her marriage to a Roma man, Alena"s father. Their claim is based upon the persecutory treatment they received in the Czech Republic because of their Roma ethnicity. Ms. Conkova testified that she has endured persecutory treatment as a result of being Roma since she was a child. At age 14, she was required by her school to undergo a gynaecological examination to prove she was still a virgin, an indignity which was not inflicted on other students. Because she does not have the typical appearance of a Roma, she was able to work as a waitress and avoid much of the ill-treatment reserved for her people but she had to endure the constant denigration to which they were subject. Her son has been the object of beatings and other inhumane treatment, because of his ethnicity. Ms. Conkova"s mother, who is Czech by birth, became so integrated into the Roma community as a result of her marriage to Ms. Conkova"s father, that she too is subject to abuse because of her imputed ethnicity.
[3] All of this was bad enough, but it got worse after Ms. Conkova got drawn into the national debate about the treatment of Roma in the Czech Republic. Reacting to reports that there was no discrimination against the Roma, Ms. Conkova contacted a newspaper and gave an interview which was the subject of a six-part article about her experiences as a Roma and her views on the treatment of Romas in the Czech Republic. As a result of the publication of those articles, her mailbox was vandalized by graffiti, an unknown assailant came to her door, said threatening words about the Roma and slashed both arms of her mother, who happened to answer the door. Anticipating that things would only get worse, Ms. Conkova came to Canada to claim refugee status, a decision prompted in part by a television program she had seen sometime previously on Roma refugee claimants in Canada.
[4] The CRDD wrote a detailed decision in which it found that it was not satisfied that Ms. Conkova was Roma. In coming to that conclusion, the CRDD referred to the newspaper articles which had been put into evidence by Ms. Conkova. It noted the ambiguous tone of articles, such as the caption quoted above, and other passages like it1 and expressed the suspicion that the article might show how ordinary Czechs were trying to pass themselves off as Roma so as to claim refugee status in Canada. After weighing the evidence, including contradictions and improbabilities in Ms. Conkova"s testimony, the CRDD concluded that Ms. Conkova had not established her Roma ethnicity and dismissed her application as well as those of her children and her mother.
[5] The standard of review of decisions of the CRDD is generally patent unreasonableness except for questions involving the interpretation of a statute when the standard becomes correctness. Sivasamboo v. Canada [1995] 1 F.C. 741 (T.D.), (1994) 87 F.T.R. 46, Pushpanathan v. Canada [1998] 1 S.C.R. 982, (1998) 160 D.L.R. (4th) 193 The issue here is the CRDD"s assessment of the evidence, a matter clearly within its mandate and its expertise. The view which the CRDD took of the evidence was one which could reasonably be taken, just as the opposing view could also reasonably be taken. The evidence, as is so often the case, is ambiguous and equivocal. Some elements support the applicants" position, others undermine it. The CRDD"s task is to consider all the elements (which does not require that specific mention be made of every piece of evidence which is reviewed) to weigh it and to come to a conclusion. As long as its conclusion is not one which is wrong on its face, it is not patently unreasonable. Canada (Director of Investigation and Research, Competition Act) v. Southam Inc . [1997] 1 S.C.R. 748, (1996) 144 D.L.R. (4th) 1 In this case, the conclusion to which the CRDD arrived is not wrong on its face, even though others might come to a different conclusion. There is no reason for this Court to intervene.
[6] No question was suggested for certification.
ORDER
The application for judicial review of the order of the Convention Refugee Determination Division dated November 3, 1998 determining that the applicants are not refugees is dismissed.
"J.D. Denis Pelletier"
Judge
__________________
1 How a woman by the name Conkova sees problems with Roma people in Czech Republic. This is the sixth and last part of our interview with a 32-year-old woman from Prague 4 Jizni Mesto [a district of Prague]. She looks like Spanish or Italian, but for her last name - Conkova - everybody immediately recognizes her as a gypsy even though her mother is Czech