Docket: IMM-10546-24
Citation: 2025 FC 1995
Ottawa, Ontario, December 18, 2025
PRESENT: Mr. Justice McHaffie
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BETWEEN: |
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GYORGY JOZSEF MERENYI |
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Applicant |
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and |
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THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
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Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
I. Overview
[1] The refusal of György Merényi’s application for a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment [PRRA] was based on a negative credibility finding made without holding a hearing. While the Senior Immigration Officer who decided the PRRA application described the issue as being one of insufficient evidence, their findings inherently question Mr. Merényi’s credibility regarding the source of central pieces of evidence.
[2] Paragraph 113(b) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27 [IRPA], section 167 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, SOR/2002-227 [IRPR], and the jurisprudence of this Court require that a hearing be held where there is central evidence that raises a serious issue regarding a PRRA applicant’s credibility. As these provisions were not respected in Mr. Merényi’s case, the refusal of his PRRA application must be set aside.
[3] The application for judicial review is therefore allowed.
II. Issues and Standard of Review
[4] Mr. Merényi raises a single issue on this application: Was the Officer’s decision improperly based on an adverse credibility finding made without holding a hearing?
[5] Credibility findings that are couched in other language, such as “insufficient evidence,”
are often termed “veiled credibility findings.”
As the parties point out, this Court has sometimes held that whether a PRRA officer has made such a finding is a procedural fairness issue that should be reviewed on what is effectively a correctness standard: see Iwekaeze v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 814 at paras 7–14 and the jurisprudence cited therein; Kiss v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 363 at paras 16–26. Other decisions have held that since the requirement to hold a hearing is found in a regulation, it is the reasonableness standard that should apply: see Atafo v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 922 at paras 9–11 and the jurisprudence cited therein; SKGO v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 1295 at paras 14–15.
[6] I do not propose to repeat the discussion reflected in these decisions, as the outcome of this case is not affected by the applicable standard of review. However, I note that since the foregoing cases, the Federal Court of Appeal has recently applied the correctness standard in addressing whether a hearing should be held, despite the fact that the question of whether a hearing had to be held was addressed in a statutory provision: Pacific Coast Terminals Co v Habus, 2025 FCA 152 at paras 21, 51–55.
[7] In any event, given my conclusion below that the Officer made a veiled credibility finding on a central issue, the result would be the same regardless of the applicable standard of review: Johnfiah v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 1091 at para 6. In other words, the decision must be quashed because the Officer failed to hold a hearing when one was required, regardless of whether the failure is described as unreasonable, incorrect, or unfair.
III. Analysis
A. The hearing obligation and veiled credibility findings
[8] Paragraph 113(b) of the IRPA provides that a hearing “may be held”
in the consideration of a PRRA application “if the Minister, on the basis of prescribed factors, is of the opinion that a hearing is required.”
The prescribed factors are set out in section 167 of the IRPR. They are threefold: (a) whether there is evidence that raises a serious issue of the applicant’s credibility and is related to the factors in sections 96 and 97 of the IRPA; (b) whether the evidence is central to the decision with respect to the PRRA application; and (c) whether the evidence, if accepted, would justify allowing the PRRA application.
[9] While paragraph 113(b) of the IRPA uses permissive language (“may be held”
), and section 167 of the IRPR describes “factors”
for consideration, the jurisprudence of this Court has hardened the analysis to mean that (a) the three factors in section 167 of the IRPR constitute a conjunctive test, in which all three elements must be satisfied; and (b) if the three elements are satisfied, a hearing is generally required (not simply “may be held”
): Strachn v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2012 FC 984 at para 34; Huang v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 1439 at para 41. Section 167 has been recognized as codifying common law principles of procedural fairness: Ahmed v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2018 FC 1207 at para 27. In essence, a hearing must be held when there is a credibility issue regarding central evidence that could justify allowing the application: Huang at para 41.
[10] This requirement has led to numerous decisions of this Court addressing whether an officer refusing a PRRA application has in fact made a credibility determination without describing it as such: see, e.g., the cases cited at para 18 of Cali c Canada (Citoyenneté et Immigration), 2025 CF 587 [currently available only in French]. This often involves an assessment of whether a PRRA officer’s finding that evidence is insufficient is actually one of credibility. This is the issue that arises in this case.
[11] As the caselaw recognizes, the distinction between a sufficiency finding and a credibility finding may be difficult to draw: Gao v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2014 FC 59 at para 32; Kiss at para 22; Ahmed at paras 30–32. An officer’s choice of words is not determinative, but a finding that the evidence does not establish an applicant’s claim is not necessarily a credibility finding: Gao at para 32; Matute Andrade v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2010 FC 1074 at paras 31–34.
B. The findings at issue
(1) Context: Mr. Merényi’s PRRA application
[12] Mr. Merényi contends that he is at risk of politically motivated persecution at the hands of corrupt Hungarian government authorities. This persecution has included attacks, injuries, police harassment, and threats. Importantly, it has also included criminal prosecutions that Mr. Merényi alleges to be unjustified.
[13] Mr. Merényi used to work with his father, an accountant and tax expert, work that gave him access to personal information and sensitive documents regarding clients. Mr. Merényi alleges that he discovered that his father was assisting powerful clients in Hungary to evade taxes, launder money, and embezzle money from the Hungarian state. He believes the persecution that he has suffered, including the wrongful criminal charges, arose from the knowledge he acquired through working with his father.
[14] Mr. Merényi filed a refugee claim in 2022. The Minister intervened in Mr. Merényi’s hearing before the Refugee Protection Division [RPD], raising a potential exclusion from refugee protection. The Minister filed a court decision issuing an arrest warrant and an Interpol Red Notice, which indicated Mr. Merényi was wanted by Hungarian authorities on embezzlement charges based on allegations that he stole the equivalent of about C$33,000 and issued false receipts to cover the theft. The RPD did not believe Mr. Merényi’s evidence that he did not commit this crime and that the charges were motivated by his employer cooperating with corrupt officials. The RPD found there were serious reasons to believe Mr. Merényi had committed a serious non-political crime and that he was therefore excluded from refugee protection under Article 1F(b) of the Refugee Convention and section 98 of the IRPA.
[15] In a decision dated October 5, 2023, the Refugee Appeal Division [RAD] rejected Mr. Merényi’s appeal, based on the merits of his claim rather than an exclusion. The RAD held that Mr. Merényi was not excluded from protection, since the crime he was charged with was not a “serious”
one within the meaning of Article 1F(b), given the amount of money involved. The RAD therefore reviewed the merits of Mr. Merényi’s claim, but found he was not credible in his allegations. While the RAD accepted that Mr. Merényi may genuinely fear being targeted by corrupt Hungarian officials, there was no objective basis to support his allegations. The RAD noted that Mr. Merényi’s convoluted and confusing testimony may have been due to his mental health challenges rather than purposeful evasiveness or non-responsiveness. Nonetheless, it found that there was insufficient objective evidence to indicate that he was the target of corrupt and high-level politicians.
[16] Mr. Merényi was offered the opportunity to file a PRRA application, which he did in late December 2023, with further submissions following in early January 2024. His PRRA application was based on the same essential allegations that founded his refugee claim, namely his persecution at the hands of Hungarian government authorities. He again relied on the fabricated criminal cases against him. In particular, he claimed that after the refusal of his refugee claim, the charges against him were changed to include a terrorism charge, namely failure to report a terrorist act under section 317 of the Hungarian Criminal Code.
[17] Mr. Merényi attached to his PRRA application a screenshot of a website page, apparently taken on a cellular phone. The top of the screenshot shows the typical graphics of a cellular phone, including the time (but no date), while the bottom of the screenshot, where a website address is typically found, shows the text “police.hu.”
The screenshot itself contains three similar blocks, one on top of the other, although the lower half of the bottom block is cut off. Each of the top two blocks shows: (i) on the left, a photograph of Mr. Merényi; (ii) on the right, the text “sikkasztás - btk”
followed by a number (317 in the top block, 372 in the second block); and (iii) across the bottom, Mr. Merényi’s full name. The third block appears to be in the same format and to have the same photograph of Mr. Merényi. However, since it is cut off, only the text (“sikkasztás - btk”
with the number 372) and the top half of the photograph are visible.
[18] In his PRRA submission, Mr. Merényi said this screenshot was taken from the Hungarian police website and gave the full URL for the webpage, which is found on the “www.police.hu”
website. He described the screenshots as showing three arrest warrants (Hungarian, European Union, and International), all based on the same charge of embezzlement, which falls under section 372 of the Criminal Code. He said that previously, section 372 was reflected in all three warrants, but that a week or so before the warrant expired, the international warrant was changed to refer to section 317, namely failure to report a terrorist act. Mr. Merényi stated that the screenshot is dated November 13, 2023, and that the information remained unchanged until the warrants were taken from the website on November 17, 2023.
[19] Mr. Merényi argued that it was suspicious that the information regarding the international warrant on the Hungarian website was changed five years after its issuance and right after his refugee claim was denied. He noted that if he had to cross the border before November 17, 2023, a notice would have mentioned terrorism, and he would have been treated differently than a person suspected of embezzlement. He relied on this change, together with objective country condition evidence regarding Hungarian authorities engaging in false accusations, as evidence of his claim of persecution.
(2) The Officer’s findings with respect to the screenshot
[20] In their decision refusing Mr. Merényi’s PRRA application, the Officer reviewed the findings of the RPD and the RAD in some detail, noting that credibility was the determinative issue before the RAD. The Officer recognized that they were not required to arrive at the same conclusions as the RAD, but that it was an expert body in assessing risk, country conditions, and credibility. They therefore gave the RAD’s decision “significant weight”
in their assessment and noted that the issues raised by the RAD remained relevant.
[21] The Officer assessed the screenshot Mr. Merényi provided as new evidence that had arisen since the RAD’s decision. They stated that Mr. Merényi “alleged”
the screenshot was taken from the Hungarian police website. The Officer correctly noted that two of the three pictures in the screenshot have the number 372 listed. However, the Officer incorrectly stated that the screenshot with the number 317 (said to be the terrorism-related charge) was cut off halfway. In fact, as described above, it was the bottom block with the number 372 that was cut off, not the top one with the number 317.
[22] The Officer acknowledged Mr. Merényi’s statement that the screenshot was taken on November 13, 2023, but noted that the screenshot itself only has a time stamp. The Officer stated that this was “of particular importance as it would have verified the applicant’s claim that changes were made to his warrant.”
The Officer referred to the link Mr. Merényi provided to the Hungarian police website, which was partly in English although no translation of the website had been provided. The Officer conducted their own search of the website, stating the following:
Upon searching the website, I was unable to locate the pictures within the screenshots that the applicant submitted. Therefore, I am unable to verify that the screenshots the applicant submitted are from the Hungarian police website. As such, I am unable to substantiate the applicant’s claim that the government is targeting him or making a false claim against him. The applicant submitted insufficient evidence to establish that these screenshots are from an objective source which in turn does not support his allegations.
[Emphasis added.]
[23] The Officer found that Mr. Merényi had provided little evidence to substantiate his assertion that the Hungarian government was trying to make a false claim against him. Referring back to the RAD’s decision, the Officer noted that Mr. Merényi was a wanted person, but that the evidence did not demonstrate that the Hungarian government was fabricating allegations to prosecute or target him. They therefore found there was insufficient evidence to indicate that Mr. Merényi faced a forward-looking risk.
C. The Officer effectively made adverse credibility findings
[24] As set out above, the Officer described their conclusion as one based on the insufficiency of the evidence presented. However, I agree with Mr. Merényi’s submissions that the Officer’s findings with respect to the screenshot were in fact credibility findings. In particular, the Officer’s reasons indicate that they were not prepared to accept as credible Mr. Merényi’s two central assertions with respect to the screenshot: (1) that it was taken from the Hungarian police website; and (2) that it was taken on November 13, 2023.
[25] I reach this conclusion for three reasons. First, the Officer’s reasons make clear they did not accept Mr. Merényi’s statement—described as an “allegation”
—that the screenshot was taken from the Hungarian police website. Notably, Mr. Merényi presented the screenshot as objective corroboration of his assertions regarding his persecution by Hungarian authorities. He asserted that the screenshot was taken of the Hungarian police website on November 13, 2023, and that it therefore showed the contents of the website on that date. The Officer did not claim that a screenshot is somehow insufficient to establish the contents of a website as a general matter. Rather, they did not accept that the screenshot was in fact what Mr. Merényi asserted it was. By questioning the provenance of the screenshot, the Officer was effectively questioning its authenticity, i.e., whether Mr. Merényi was lying when he said it was a screenshot of the website.
[26] The same is true with respect to the date of the screenshot. The Officer notes that the screenshot does not itself have a date on it, a fact that appears to be the result of the screenshot being taken on a phone. However, Mr. Merényi stated that the screenshot was taken on November 13, 2023. If the Officer had believed him on this point—found him credible—the fact that the date does not show up in the screenshot itself would be immaterial.
[27] Second, the Officer’s reasons indicate that they considered it necessary to “substantiate”
and “verify”
Mr. Merényi’s statement that the screenshot was from the Hungarian police website. Again, this “substantiation”
or “verification”
is a step to determine whether the screenshot was an authentic representation of the Hungarian police website as Mr. Merényi stated. As a result, the rejection of the screenshot based on the lack of independent substantiation is not simply a conclusion that the evidence was insufficient to establish the contents of the website, but a conclusion that Mr. Merényi’s statement was not believed.
[28] It is worth noting on this issue that it is unclear why the Officer believed that visiting the Hungarian police website might allow them to verify or substantiate the presence of the arrest warrants. Mr. Merényi’s PRRA submission stated that the warrants were taken from the website on November 17, 2023. Nonetheless, the Officer appears to have taken from the fact that they were unable to find the warrants in 2024—a fact consistent with Mr. Merényi’s statement—that the screenshot was insufficient evidence. Again, the concern underlying this does not appear to be one of insufficiency, but one about Mr. Merényi’s credibility regarding the provenance of the screenshot.
[29] Third, I agree with Mr. Merényi that the Officer’s reference to and reliance on the RAD’s reasons suggests a concern about Mr. Merényi’s credibility. Noting that credibility was the determinative issue before the RAD, the Officer gave the RAD’s decision significant weight and stated that the issues noted by the RAD remained relevant. After their analysis of the screenshot, the Officer returned to the RAD’s decision, again noting its relevance. While not weighing heavily in the balance, I agree that this reliance on the RAD’s adverse credibility finding gives some additional indication that the Officer’s finding was ultimately one of credibility rather than simply one of insufficiency.
[30] The Minister suggests that the Officer’s reasons indicate that they considered a number of factors in determining the sufficiency of the screenshot, and that the Court should give deference to this analysis. I am not persuaded by this submission. Two of the three factors the Minister points to—the absence of a date and the Officer’s website verification—indicate that the issue was effectively one of credibility, for the reasons discussed above. The third factor the Minister cites is the Officer’s reference to the warrant with the number 317 being cut off in the screenshot. However, the Officer did not explain what conclusion they drew from the warrant being cut off and, more importantly, the Officer’s observation was simply wrong as a factual matter: the warrant with the number 317 was not cut off in the screenshot. While this factual error is insufficient to be determinative of this application, it does mean that it cannot be used to justify the Officer’s finding as one of insufficiency.
[31] For the above reasons, I conclude that the Officer’s reasons and findings show that there was evidence that raised a “serious issue of the applicant’s credibility”
related to the factors set out in sections 96 and 97 of the IRPA, namely the screenshot provided by Mr. Merényi and his statements regarding the provenance of that screenshot. The implicit contrary assertion in the Officer’s reasons—that there was no issue regarding Mr. Merényi’s credibility—is untenable, whether on a correctness or reasonableness standard.
[32] This leaves the factors set out in paragraphs 167(b) and (c) of the IRPR, namely whether the evidence was central and potentially determinative. On these issues, the Officer made no explicit findings. However, as Mr. Merényi points out, the Officer themself noted the importance of the evidence. In referring to the question of the date of the screenshot, the Officer wrote that this was “of particular importance as it would have verified the applicant’s claim that changes were made to his warrant”
[emphasis added]. This assessment by the Officer was not counterbalanced by any discussion of whether the claim would have been refused even if the screenshot had been accepted.
[33] Given these aspects of the Officer’s reasons and the fact that the screenshot was the central piece of evidence put forward by Mr. Merényi to establish his risk, I conclude that the Officer was required to hold a hearing before making findings of the nature they made. Their failure to do so means that the decision must be set aside, regardless of the applicable standard of review.
IV. Conclusion
[34] For the foregoing reasons, the application for judicial review is granted. The Officer’s decision will be set aside and Mr. Merényi’s PRRA application remitted for redetermination by a different officer.
[35] Neither party proposed a question for certification, and I agree that none arises in the matter.
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