PRESENT: THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE SHORE
BETWEEN:
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
REASONS FOR ORDER AND ORDER
[1] A specialized tribunal assesses a series of alleged facts, to determine the plausibility of the what, how, when, where, who, against a human condition backdrop, a geo-political setting and supporting exhibits. Unless a decision is patently unreasonable, it is for the expertise of the administrative tribunal that the Court exercises self-restraint and defers to administrative decision makers.
JUDICIAL PROCEDURE
[2] This is an application for judicial review pursuant to subsection 72(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act[1] (IRPA) of the decision of the Immigration and Refugee Board, Refugee Protection Division (Board) which, on May 3, 2004, dismissed the Applicant's claim for "refugee" status pursuant to section 96 and also that of a "person in need of protection" pursuant to subsection 97(1) of IRPA.
BACKGROUND
[3] A citizen of Ethiopia, the Applicant, Mr. Kaleb Ayele Regasa, alleges a well-founded fear of persecution based on political opinion and membership in a particular group, the family.
[4] Mr. Regasa left Ethiopia when he was 13 years of age to join his mother in the United States. When he was 19, in1998, he made an asylum claim in the United States which was rejected. His appeal was also rejected. In July 2002, he was allowed to voluntarily depart the United States. He came to Canada and made a refugee claim on December 7, 2002.
[5] Mr. Regasa alleges that his family are members of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP). He alleges that his uncles as members were imprisoned by the Mengistu regime. One of his uncles was granted asylum in the United States. Mr. Regasa alleges that his father is currently in jail in Ethiopia.
[6] Mr. Regasa claims he himself joined the EPRP in 1997 when he was in the United States. After joining, he says he participated in demonstrations, distributed pamphlets, attended meetings and did fundraising for the EPRP. The demonstrations of the EPRP's opposition to the ruling of the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) were public. He believes he is well-known to the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington.
DECISION UNDER REVIEW
[7] The Board did not find that Mr. Regasa's claim as based on his political opinion was credible: Due to conflicting dates in respect of his membership in the EPRP, without any satisfactory explanation; his complete lack of knowledge of a major EPRP congress in August 2001; his failure to provide any press release or report in respect to rallies which he allegedly attended and the failure or absence of any ERPR representative to support his asylum claim in the United States. Furthermore, the Board was not persuaded that Mr. Regasa's family had links to the EPRP. In that regard, the claim of Mr. Regasa's mother was not positively resolved; his brother's claim is apparently still outstanding; his uncle, although granted asylum in the United States in 1985, it must be recalled that occurred during the Mengistu regime. In addition, his father, although, supposedly, imprisoned in Ethiopia, yet Mr. Regasa, his son, did not establish any link between the imprisonment of his father and the EPRP.
ISSUE
[8] Was it patently unreasonable for the Board to conclude the Applicant was not credible?
ANALYSIS
[9] Where credibility is at stake, the Board's mistake must be patently unreasonable for this Court to intervene (Aguebor v. (Canada) Minister of Employment and Immigration[2], Pissareva v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)[3], Singh v. Canada(Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)[4]).
[10] First of all, Mr. Regasa takes issue with the Board for the weight it accorded two letters which allegedly confirm his membership in the EPRP. He provided the two letters from the Washington division of the EPRP to confirm that membership. Although, one of the letters specified that he had joined the party in 1998 and had been active since then, his Personal Information Form (PIF) and his own testimony indicated that he joined and became active in 1997. Due to Mr. Regasa's inadequate explanation for this inconsistency, the Board concluded that it was not satisfied with Mr. Regasa's explanation and was not prepared to give significant weight to the IPRP letters. The Board then stated that it needed to assess further evidence before making a definitive finding. Subsequently, further to that assessment, the Board put in serious doubt Mr. Regasa's affiliation with the EPRP. The Board clearly concluded that in light of the combined inconsistencies, it found Mr. Regasa not to be a member of the EPRP. The Court finds the Board's assessment of the two letters, confirming Mr. Regasa's membership to the EPRP, totally opened to it.
[11] Mr. Regasa also argues that the Board erred in stating that he attended two rallies in May 2001. According to Mr. Regasa, he testified that he attended only one rally in May 2001 and also one rally in May 2002. Having read the transcripts at pages 106 and 116 of the Board's record, the Court is satisfied that the Board correctly understood the evidence as given by Mr. Regasa to have meant that the latter participated in two rallies in May 2002. Mr. Regasa could have corrected the Board when it stated that he attended two rallies in May 2001, but he did not do so.
[12] Mr. Regasa argues that the Board's finding, that he did not attend a major EPRP Congress held in August 2001, was patently unreasonable. The Board's actual finding was that Mr. Regasa should have known of this congress as it was an international event, not that Mr. Regasa would have been expected to attend. The Court sees nothing patently unreasonable with the Board's finding.
[13] The Board drew a negative inference from the fact that the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington renewed Mr. Regasa's expired passport in October 2002, after he had allegedly joined the EPRP, had participated in anti-government rallies and had become known to Ethiopian Embassy officials. The Board also expressed its expectation that an EPRP representative in Washington would have appeared on his behalf at his asylum hearing in Baltimore. The Court agrees that, although these two findings are not strong elements, in and of themselves, by which to find a lack of credibility, nevertheless, the case must be examined as a whole; and in analyzing the Board's credibility findings in their entirety, the Court does not find that the Board reached a patently unreasonable decision.
CONCLUSION
[14] For these reasons, the Court answers the question at issue in the negative. Consequently, the application for judicial review is dismissed.
ORDER
THIS COURT ORDERS that
1. The application for judicial review be dismissed;
2. No question be certified.
Judge
FEDERAL COURT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD
DOCKET: IMM-5110-04
STYLE OF CAUSE: KALEB AYELE REGASA
v.
MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
ANDIMMIGRATION
PLACE OF HEARING: Toronto, Ontario
AND ORDER BY: The Honourable Mr. Justice Shore
APPEARANCES:
Mr. Micheal Crane FOR THE APPLICANT
Mr. Bernard Assan FOR THE RESPONDENT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
MICHEAL CRANE FOR THE APPLICANT
Toronto, Ontario
JOHN H. SIMS Q.C. FOR THE RESPONDENT
Deputy Minister of Justice and
Deputy Attorney General