Date: 19980821
Docket: IMM-225-98
Between :
NADARASAH VELAYUTHAM
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
PINARD, J. :
[1] The applicant, a Tamil male from northern Sri Lanka, seeks judicial review of a decision of the Refugee Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the Board) dated December 19, 1997, in which the Board determined he was not a Convention refugee as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Immigration Act.
[2] The Board's decision was based on its finding that, first, the applicant's testimony and personal information form were not credible in the face of other documentary evidence and that, second, the applicant had an internal flight alternative.
[3] On questions of fact and credibility, the weighing and interpretation of evidence is entirely within the scope of the Board's expertise. Only where the Board's findings are clearly unsupported by the evidence or are otherwise capricious or perverse will this Court intervene. Here, the applicant argues that the evidence lends itself to a different interpretation than that made by the Board. With respect to the four primary elements of the Board's decision - the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE) recruitment, the LTTE pass system, travel to Colombo through Vavuniya, and the fact that the applicant failed to mention in his statutory declaration that he had been detained and beaten one month earlier by the Colombo police - the applicant has failed to show any manifest error in the Board's determination. In my view, the Board's finding of a lack of credibility, based on these four primary elements of the applicant's fear of persecution, was open to it on the evidence before it. Thus, the Board assessed the applicant's credibility properly and the Board's view that the applicant is not credible amounts in fact to a conclusion that there is no credible basis to justify the applicant's claim for refugee status (see Rajaratnam v. Canada (M.E.I.), 135 N.R. 300 (F.C.A.) and Sheikh v. Canada, [1990] 3 F.C. 238 at 244 (F.C.A.)).
[4] Furthermore, even if the Board was wrong in its analysis of the applicant's story, which I find is not the case, there is no indication that the Board's finding of an internal flight alternative to Colombo was based on improper principles or a failure to consider all the evidence. The test for an internal flight alternative is whether: (a) there was no serious possibility that the applicant would be persecuted in Colombo; and (b) whether conditions in Colombo were such that it would not be unreasonable for the applicant to settle there, taking into account all the surrounding circumstances, including circumstances particular to the applicant (see Rasaratnam v. Canada (M.E.I.), [1992] 1 F.C. 706, 140 N.R. 138 (F.C.A.)). The Board's finding of an internal flight alternative is not affected in any way by its finding of a lack of credibility. Rather, the Board based its conclusion on the facts that the applicant has a national identity card, a good education and business experience, that Tamils now make up 25% of the population in Colombo, and that the standard of living in Colombo for Tamils is not unreasonable. Although the applicant is likely to be arrested and detained every so often during police "round-ups", the Board could find no evidence that the applicant would suffer anything more serious because of his particular circumstances, including the fact that he would have recently returned from a failed attempt to claim refugee status outside of Sri Lanka.
[5] For all the above reasons, the application for judicial review is dismissed. I agree with counsel for the parties that this matter does not raise any question of general importance for the purpose of certification.
JUDGE
OTTAWA, ONTARIO
August 21, 1998