Date: 19990813
Docket: IMM-3363-98
Between :
MIRZA ZAKARIA
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
PINARD, J. :
[1] The applicant seeks judicial review of a decision of the Refugee Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the Board) dated June 10, 1998, in which the Board determined he was not a Convention refugee.
[2] The Board rejected the applicant's claim on the basis that it lacked credibility.
[3] The applicant, a 51-year-old citizen of Pakistan, is a film producer and director. In January 1990, he made a proposal for a historical feature film based on the life of Z.A. Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan and father of Benazir Bhutto. The title of this film, which was to have been Wazeer-e-Azam (Prime Minister) was registered under the applicant's name with the Culture and Sports Division, government of Pakistan. However, in the early stages of shooting in June 1990, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government halted production. Although production stopped, there is documentary evidence indicating that the applicant renewed his right to use the title until the end of 1996. In his affidavit sworn on August 3, 1998, the applicant states that he still owned the title at that time.
[4] Later that year, the Muslim League (ML) came into power and allegedly Nawaz Sharif's brother put in a proposal for a film, to be called Wazeer-e-Azam, the subject of which would be Nawaz Sharif. The applicant, however, refused to give up his right to the title and in so doing he allegedly made an enemy of the ML. In 1993, the PPP, who was back in power, also allegedly tried to get the applicant to make a film using his title about Benazir Bhutto, which he refused to do.
[5] The applicant alleged that if he returned to Pakistan, the PPP would kill him because he would not make a film for them about Benazir Bhutto using his title Wazeer-e-Azam. He also maintained that the ML would kill him because he held on to his right to the title Wazeer-e-Azam when Nawaz Sharif's brother wanted to use it for a film about Nawaz Sharif.
[6] The Board held that no reasonable person should be expected to believe:
| 1) That the PPP, at the highest level, ordered that the claimant be killed because he refused to make a film about Benazir Bhutto using "his" title Wazeer-e-Azam. |
| 2) that the ML, presently in power in Pakistan, will kill him because he refused to relinquish his title, Wazeer-e-Azam, so that Nawaz Sharif's brother could use it in a film about Nawaz Sharif. |
[7] The Board also held that these issues were moot given that on December 31, 1996, the applicant lost the right to this title.
[8] Finally, the Board did not believe that the applicant was beaten on the days he said he was beaten.
[9] The applicant first argues, based on Hilo v. Canada (M.E.I.) (1992), 15 Imm.L.R. (2d) 199, that the Board failed to given reasons for its negative decision in "clear and unmistakeable terms". However, in Shahamati c. M.E.I. (24 mars 1994), A-388-92, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled:
| . . . Contrary to what has sometimes been said, the Board is entitled, in assessing credibility, to rely on criteria such as rationality and common sense. |
[10] In McDonald v. C.E.I.C. (1991), 131 N.R. 389, the Federal Court of Appeal had previously ruled that reasons are not required when the applicant's story is inherently implausible, at page 394:
| For a professional tribunal like the former Immigration Appeal Board, this Court in Armson v. Minister of Employment and Immigration (1989), 101 N.R. 372, following the Ontario Divisional Court in Pitts v. Ontario (1985), 9 O.A.C. 205; 51 O.R. (2d) 302, established, per Heald J.A. (at 376), that "In the circumstances of this case, the Board owed a duty to this applicant to give its reasons for rejecting the applicant's refugee claim on the ground of credibility in clear and unmistakeable terms." |
| I believe the particularization of this holding by Heald J.A., in his reference to the "circumstances of the case," is more fully explained in the immediately preceding paragraph of his reasons (at 376): |
| "Accordingly, I conclude ... that since this portion of the applicant's evidence is not contradicted, is consistent, and is not inherently suspect or improbable, the Board erred in making adverse findings of credibility in respect thereof." (Emphasis added) |
| In other words, disbelief of evidence that is inherently improbable because of its special characteristics may be said to speak for itself, and not to require explanation, particularly by a nonspecialist tribunal. |
[11] Thus, although the Board is obliged to state in clear and unmistakeable terms why it disbelieves the applicant (Hilo, supra), this is only so when the applicant's evidence "is not inherently suspect or improbable" (Pitts, referred to in McDonald, supra). As it is clear, in the case at bar, that the Board found the applicant's evidence to be improbable, the applicant's first argument is without merit as the Board's conclusion was not patently unreasonable.
[12] The applicant also argues that the Board based its decision on the fact that his title had allegedly expired on December 31, 1996 and on the fact that it perceived contradictions in the story of his beating from August 10 to 15. In my view, even if the Board erred in concluding that the applicant had lost his title in December 1996 and that he was not beaten on the days he said he was beaten, all this is irrelevant as the Board considered it to be unreasonable to believe that the applicant would be killed by the PPP for refusing to make a movie or by the ML for refusing to relinquish that title in the first place.
[13] For all the above reasons, given the deference owed to the Board on findings of credibility (see, for example, Aguebor v. M.E.I. (1993), 160 N.R. 315), I do not consider that the intervention of this Court is warranted.
[14] Consequently, the application for judicial review is dismissed.
JUDGE
OTTAWA, ONTARIO
August 13, 1999