Date: 20080606
Docket: IMM-4935-07
Citation: 2008 FC 707
Ottawa, Ontario, June 6, 2008
PRESENT: The
Honourable Mr. Justice Martineau
BETWEEN:
JOSE ALFREDO OCAMPO GARCIA
MANUEL OCAMPO RUIZ
Applicants
and
THE
MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER AND ORDER
[1]
This
is an application for judicial review of the decision of the Refugee Protection
Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the Board) dated
October 29, 2007, determining that the applicants are not “Convention
refugee[s]” or “person[s] in need of protection” as defined in
sections 96 and 97 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection
Act, S.C. 2001, c. 27, as amended (the Act).
[2]
The
applicants, Jose Alfredo Ocampo Garcia and his cousin, Manuel Ocampo Ruiz, are
citizens of Mexico. They are
alleging that, on March 18, 2006, four officers of the judicial
police arrested them and threatened their lives. They were eventually set free
and warned not to cause problems for government leaders again. That same
evening, they tried to complain to the Office of the Public Prosecutor, but it did not
want to register their complaint. The applicants are also alleging that, on
April 19, 2006, they gave a statement to the Attorney General of
Justice of the Federal District of Mexico. The next day, they were intercepted
by the same officers of the judicial police who had threatened their lives. In
the meantime, the applicants had obtained passports and bought plane tickets to
Canada. They left Mexico on
April 21, 2006, and claimed refugee protection in Canada on the same day.
[3]
First,
the Board is of the opinion that, at the hearing, the applicants gave answers
that did not correspond to what they had written in their respective Personal
Information Forms (PIFs) or in the documents that were completed as soon as
they arrived in Canada (port-of-entry notes). According to the impugned
decision, the applicants’ credibility is seriously compromised for the
following reasons:
- In their PIFs, the
applicants stated that, on March 18, 2006, the four officers of the
judicial police intercepted them particularly because they were defending
an aunt and that they had complained to 37 federal government leaders.
Yet, before the Board, they stated that they had merely been witnesses in
proceedings instituted by their aunt in a matter involving a real estate
transaction;
- In their PIFs, the
applicants stated that they had not seen the four officers of the judicial
police on March 18, 2006. However, they
wrote that, on April 20, 2006, they had been intercepted by the
same officers. At the hearing, one of the applicants stated that he had
recognized their voices, which the Board found to be implausible;
- The applicant
Ocampo Garcia wrote in his PIF that, on March 18, 2006, the four
officers of the judicial police stopped him also because his father had
defended taxi drivers and had obtained refugee status in Canada.
However, at the hearing, he claimed that the four officers had started
beating him on March 18, 2006, while asking him where his father was.
Confronted with this contradiction, the applicant replied that the police
officers in question knew that his father was abroad, but did not know
where exactly;
- The applicant
Ocampo Garcia also claimed at the hearing that he had been arrested on the
pretext that he had been mixed up in his aunt’s affairs, but that the real
reason for his arrest was that he belonged to the Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD) [democratic
revolution party]. Yet, in the information that he provided on his arrival
in Canada,
the applicant made no reference to his membership in this party or to the
persecution that he had apparently suffered because of this membership.
Confronted with this omission, he stated that he had forgotten to mention
those facts;
- In their PIFs, the
applicants indicated that, after discussing their situation with members
of the PRD on April 19, 2006, they had given a statement to the
Attorney General of Justice of the Federal District of Mexico. Yet, at the
hearing, one of the applicants claimed that it was after a long discussion
with their aunt that they had decided to make a complaint on
April 19, 2006.
[4]
In
the impugned decision, the Board then alternatively analyzed the issue of
Mexican state protection. In light of the credibility issues of the applicants’
narrative and of the fact that they had taken their only action with the
Mexican authorities two days before they left, the Board found that the
applicants had not discharged their burden of proving that the Mexican state is
incapable of protecting them.
[5]
The
applicants allege that today they have a valid explanation for every
contradiction and implausibility raised by the Board in the impugned decision.
In this regard, the applicants’ counsel referred this Court to the specific
answers that they gave to the Board (see particularly pages 337–338, 345–348,
350, 353–354 and 358 as well as pages 24 and 278 of the Tribunal Record). In
this case, those are only the obvious contradictions. The applicants are also
challenging the legality of the finding with respect to the ability of the
Mexican state to protect them, claiming that the Board read the evidence
selectively (see particularly pages 233–234 and 246–247 of the Tribunal
Record).
[6]
For
the purposes of these reasons, the finding that the applicants are not credible
is determinative. In this case, the standard of review applicable to decisions
of the Board based on a refugee claimant’s lack of credibility is
reasonableness (Aguebor v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration),
[1993] F.C.J. No. 732 (F.C.A.); Dunsmuir v. New-Brunswick, 2008 SCC 9).
[7]
After
analyzing the panel’s decision and reviewing all of the evidence, I find the
lack of credibility finding to be reasonable. A lack of credibility finding, as
in this case, can be based on implausibilities, contradictions, irrationality
and common sense. The Board gave reasons for its overall finding of a lack of
credibility. It has not been demonstrated to this Court’s satisfaction that the
finding was “based . . . on an erroneous finding of fact that [the
Board] made in a perverse or capricious manner or without regard for the
material before it” (subsection 18.1(4) of the Federal Courts Act,
R.S.C. 1985, c. F-7, as amended; Anjete v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration), 2008 FC 644, at paragraphs 3 and 4; and Bielecki v.
Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2008 FC 442, at
paragraphs 16 through 23). In fact, it seems that, dissatisfied with the
decision obtained, the applicants are requesting today, in the hope that their
application would be allowed, that this Court reassess the evidence and
substitute its opinion for that of the Board.
[8]
Let
us recall that the Court must not examine in fine detail the examples of the
lack of credibility in the impugned decision, but must rather consider them as
a whole and interpret them in context and in light of all the evidence on the
record. In addition, the errors attributed to the Board must be determinative
for the Court to refer the matter back for a new hearing. In this case, even
though some of the Board’s interpretations of the applicants’ answers may be
questionable, I cannot say that they were perverse or capricious in this case,
or that they affected the Board’s overall finding of a lack of credibility.
[9]
The
reasonableness of the Board’s lack of credibility finding is sufficient in
order to uphold the impugned decision. Consequently, it is not necessary to
examine the issue of the Mexican state protection alternatively raised by the
applicants.
[10]
The
application for judicial review is dismissed. The parties did not submit a
question to be certified, and this case does not raise one.
ORDER
THE COURT ORDERS that the
application for judicial review be dismissed. No question is certified.
“Luc
Martineau”
Certified
true translation
Susan
Deichert, Reviser
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