Toronto, Ontario, July 27, 2005
PRESENT: THE HONOURABLE MADAM JUSTICE SNIDER
BETWEEN:
OLGA GOLUBEVA
Applicants
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER AND ORDER
[1] Ms. Golubeva Neonila (a.k.a. Neonila Golubeva), the principal applicant, and her granddaughter, Olga Golubeva, are Moldavian citizens claiming refugee status based on their religious beliefs as Evangelical Baptists. In a decision dated August 27, 2004, a panel of the Immigration and Refugee Board (Refugee Protection Division) ("the Board") determined that the Applicants were neither Convention refugees nor persons in need of protection. The Applicants seek judicial review of this decision.
Issues
[2] The Applicants raise the following issues:
1. Did the Board err in failing to provide a sufficient basis for finding that the documents tendered are not credible and trustworthy?
2. Did the Board err when it failed to give weight to an article submitted by the Applicants that had been only partially translated?
3. Did the Board err in finding it implausible for the Applicants to not have suffered persecution prior to 2002?
4. Did the Board misconstrue the principal applicant's evidence regarding when she began receiving threatening phone calls?
Analysis
[3] The Board's decision is subject to review on a standard of patent unreasonableness, meaning that the decision can only be overturned if it is entirely unsupported by the evidence.
[4] The Applicants put forward evidence including:
· medical reports showing injuries that could have been consistent with assaults;
· a letter from their local Baptist Church stating that they "had been subjected to persecution by the official authorities and the extremist sections of the population";
· two paragraphs translated from a magazine article entitled "Life of Brotherhood - Moldova" where reference was made to opposition, sometimes "unspeakably savage" by "zealots"; and
· two documents evidencing the report of an assault to the authorities.
[5] As the decision demonstrates, the Board did not ignore any of this evidence. Each document is referred to. However, the Applicants submit that the documents submitted by them, when considered as a whole, support their allegation of assault by religious extremists. However, on a standard of patent unreasonableness, it is not sufficient to put forward an alternate interpretation of the evidence before the Board; rather, the Applicants must persuade me that the overall conclusion drawn by the Board is not supported by the evidence. They fail to do so.
[6] The principle finding of the Board was that the Applicants were not persecuted in Moldova because of their religious beliefs. If they were assaulted, the Board concluded, such assaults were for reasons unrelated to their religious beliefs. Is this conclusion supported by the evidence?
[7] To meet the definition of Convention refugee, a claimant must satisfy the Board on the basis of both a subjective component and an objective component of her claim. That is, in addition to a claimant showing that she subjectively fears persecution, she must also demonstrate that the fear is well-founded in an objective sense.
(a) Subjective Component
[8] In this case, the Board raised some concerns about the subjective component of the Applicants' fears. Specifically, the Board raised an internal inconsistency with respect to the date when threatening phone calls began and found it implausible that the alleged attacks occurred in 2003 when they had engaged in the religious activities since 1995 without incident. The Board also gave little weight to the letter from the local Church which made the general statement that the Applicants were persecuted but which provided no details as to what the "persecution" was.
[9] Contrary to the Applicants' assertions, based upon my review of the record, I conclude that each of these findings was reasonably open to the Board. While the finding of inconsistency in dates appears relatively minor and may be explained as a misunderstanding of the questions being posed, a review of the transcript shows that there were two different dates given for the commencement of threatening phone calls. It was not an error for the Board to take the minor inconsistency into account.
[10] The Applicants, when questioned by the panel on why they had not suffered persecution prior to 2003, in spite of their religious activities since 1995, responded that problems escalated upon the communist resumption of power in 2001. However, the Applicants concede that there is no documentary evidence that refers, even obliquely, to an escalation in maltreatment of Baptists under the recent communist government.
[11] The Applicants also proffered medical reports. While these reports described injuries not inconsistent with assaults of the nature described by the Applicants, they do not explicitly refer to the cause of the injuries. In the absence of any other trustworthy and reliable evidence to link these reports to the alleged claim, it was open to the Board to give little weight to them. Further, taking the evidence as a whole, it was not patently unreasonable for the Board to question whether the alleged attacks ever occurred.
[12] With respect to the subjective component, the Board, in effect, concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support the Applicants' story that they were assaulted because of their religion. There is no reason for this Court to intervene in that finding.
(b) Objective Component
[13] The second component of any refugee claim is the objective component. Is there documentary or other evidence that supports the allegation? In this case, the documentary evidence was carefully considered by the Board - both the evidence put forward by the Applicants and the country condition documents. The Board found that "the preponderance of the documentary evidence on the situation of Baptists in Moldova does not support the claimants' allegations." This conclusion is amply supported by the documentary evidence.
[14] The Board rejected one piece of evidence put forward by the Applicants, which consisted of two paragraphs from a magazine article. The Board rejected this evidence since it was only a partial translation of the article. The Applicants argue that the Board failed to give proper weight to this evidence and rejected it without raising the concern of a partial translation and giving the Applicants an opportunity to address the concern. I do not agree. In the absence of a full translation that would have allowed the Board to consider the excerpt in its proper context, it was open to the Board to reject the evidence. Further, there was no need for the Board to highlight to the Applicants, in advance of its decision, that it would give no weight to this evidence because of its incompleteness (Gutkovski v. Canada (Secretary of State), [1995] F.C.J. No. 566, at para. 40-42).
Conclusion
[15] In conclusion, the Board's decision is supported by the evidence. The application will be dismissed. Neither party proposed a question of general importance for certification.
ORDER
This Court orders that
1. The application is dismissed; and
2. No question of general importance is certified.
"Judith A. Snider"
JUDGE
FEDERAL COURT
NAME OF COUNSEL AND SOLICITORS OF RECORD
DOCKET: IMM-8080-04
STYLE OF CAUSE: NEOLINA GOLUBEVA
OLGA GOLUBEVA
Applicants
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
PLACE OF HEARING: TORONTO, ONTARIO
DATE OF HEARING: JULY 26, 2005
APPEARANCES:
Hart A. Kaminker For the Applicants
Robert Bafaro For the Respondent
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
Kranc & Associates
Barristers and Solicitors
Toronto, Ontario. For the Applicants
John H. Sims, Q.C.