Docket: IMM-12889-23
Citation: 2026 FC 303
Ottawa, Ontario, March 4, 2026
PRESENT: Madam Justice Conroy
|
BETWEEN: |
|
HIJM |
|
Applicant |
|
and |
|
MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
|
Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
[1] The Applicant seeks judicial review of an immigration officer’s [Officer] negative pre-removal risk assessment [PRRA] decision, dated September 20, 2023.
[2] For the reasons that follow, the judicial review is granted. The Applicant’s request for an Anonymity Order is also granted.
I. Background
[3] The Applicant is a citizen of Bangladesh and was a member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party [BNP].
[4] In 2018 he made a claim for refugee protection claiming that his association with the BNP made him a target of the Awami League [AL], the ruling party in Bangladesh at the relevant time.
[5] His refugee claim was suspended, and he was referred to the Immigration Division [ID] on the basis that there were reasonable grounds to believe he is inadmissible to Canada for being a member of the BNP, which was found to have engaged in “subversion by force.”
The ID determined the Applicant to be inadmissible on the basis of his membership in the BNP and pursuant to s. 34(1)(f) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27 [IRPA].
[6] The Applicant sought judicial review of the ID’s inadmissibility determination. Leave was granted and in June of 2023, the Federal Court released its judgment dismissing the judicial review.
[7] Prior to the judicial review hearing, the Applicant was called in for removal proceedings and offered a restricted PRRA. Between February and September 2023, he filed evidence and made a series of submissions in support of his PRAA application. One set of submissions included news articles from August 2023 published by what is described as Bangladeshi state media [Media Reports]. The Media Reports covered the June 2023 Federal Court case dismissing the Applicant’s judicial review. The Media Reports emphasized the findings by Canadian Immigration officials that the BNP was involved in subversion by force of the AL government. They also identified the Applicant by name and his affiliation with the BNP. Some of the articles described him as having “an active role in the BNP”
and as a “BNP activist.”
II. Decision under Review
[8] The Officer found there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the Applicant was a person in need of protection within the meaning of section 97 of IRPA. The reasons for the negative PRAA decision were lengthy. For the purposes of this Application, the relevant findings are as follows:
-
Because the Applicant was inadmissible to Canada under section 34(1)(f) of IRPA, the PRAA application was assessed solely on the basis of his risk of torture and his risk to life or cruel or unusual treatment or punishment as defined in s. 97 of IRPA.
-
The Applicant established he was a member of the BNP for several years.
-
The country condition evidence shows there is a longstanding enmity between the AL and BNP. The AL regime has sought to limit and restrict its rivals, and that BNP members can face violence, harassment and more.
-
The Officer relies on a report from the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade [DFAT], which advised that “not all members of opposing political groups, and specifically, not all BNP members face the same level of risk or are likely to be subjected to the same level of treatment by security forces and the government. While there are various examples and instances of BNP leaders and high-profile members being subjected to harassment, violence or discrimination…there are fewer examples that demonstrate a pattern of violence or discrimination against low-level BNP members.”
The nature of the activities of low-level actors in the BNP is unlikely to attract attention, as opposed to members with seniority and reputation.
-
“The [A]pplicant has provided little evidence to suggest that his previous activities with the BNP warranted enough interest and attention from the AL, that they would have interest in him years after his involvement with the BNP in Bangladesh.”
-
The Media Reports were assigned “little weight”
for various reasons. The Officer identified factual errors in some of the articles, including inaccurate statements that the Federal Court found the BNP was a terrorist organization, when, in fact, the ID found the BNP was not a terrorist organization under the IRPA, a finding not disturbed by the Court. The Officer noted that the Applicant’s name was misspelled in one of the articles. Additionally, in relation to the articles that refer to the Applicant as a BNP activist, the Officer said they provide little information regarding any form of activism he engaged in and “do little to speak to any political activities”
he was a part of. Although some of the Media Reports more accurately described the Applicant’s proceedings before the ID and the Federal Court, the “articles do not go into much detail regarding any political activism or activities the applicant had engaged in or continues to be engaged in that would warrant attention from the government or security forces”
and “do little to speak to his profile and standing with the BNP currently.”
“While the articles make mention of the BNP being active on the streets with violence and arson attacks during the 2014 general election, there is no mention of the applicant participating in those efforts.”
“There is little information in these articles to indicate that the applicant has a profile that would warrant more attention from the AL and security forces.”
The Officer also found there “is little evidence about the perception of the applicant and reactions to his attempts to seek protection in Canada as a result of these stories being published.”
III. Preliminary Issue – Anonymity Order
[9] The Applicant seeks an Anonymity Order pursuant to Rule 8.1 of the Federal Courts Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection Rules, SOR/93-22 on the basis that this Court’s decision on the Applicant’s earlier judicial review was covered by the media in Bangladesh, where he claims to be at risk. He notes a Confidentiality Order was recently granted to seal the file in the Applicant’s earlier judicial review based on similar considerations.
[10] The Respondent does not oppose the request.
[11] Court proceedings are presumptively open to the public: Sherman Estate v Donovan, 2021 SCC 25 at paras 37-38. Accordingly, the Applicant must establish that an anonymity order is necessary and proportionate to prevent “a risk of harm that rises above mere inconvenience or embarrassment”
: Adeleye v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 681.
[12] I am satisfied that such an order is necessary to prevent the alleged risk of harm and that the beneficial effects of such an order outweigh its deleterious effect on the open court principle.
[13] Accordingly, the style of cause and these reasons for judgment shall be anonymized to protect the Applicant’s identity.
IV. Issue and Standard of Review
[14] The Applicant raised several grounds for judicial review. I need only address one: was the Officer’s assessment of the Media Reports unreasonable?
[15] The parties agree, as do I, that the standard of review is reasonableness: Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at paras 23, 25 [Vavilov].
V. Analysis
[16] In assessing the weight of the Media Reports the Officer focuses, in large part, on tangential and immaterial considerations. For example, the Officer observes a minor misspelling of the Applicant’s name and the inaccurate summaries of the Applicant’s previous Federal Court case and immigration history in Canada.
[17] These reporting errors are, at best, irrelevant to the risk the Applicant faces. At worst, the reporting errors may serve to increase the Applicant’s risk. As argued by the Applicant, “the reporting that Canada has found the Applicant inadmissible for connection to terrorism makes it more likely he will be subject to detention and interrogation.”
It is difficult to understand why the Officer thought these reporting errors justified giving the Media Reports less weight.
[18] The Media Reports were not proffered by the Applicant for their reliability, but to demonstrate an asserted increase or renewed public profile of the Applicant in the eyes of the agents of persecution. As found by the Officer in another section in the reasons the higher the profile of the Applicant, the greater the risk he faced.
[19] The Officer also ascribed the Media Reports less weight because they did not go into detail about exactly what the Applicant did for the BNP. I agree with the Applicant that it is illogical to suggest that the agents of persecution would read the Media Reports which name the Applicant as a BNP activist and just stop there because the journalists haven’t provided sufficient detail of the Applicant’s activities.
[20] The relevant inquiry with respect to the Media Reports is not whether the Officer thinks that the Applicant, in fact, had a sufficient level of activity with the BNP to be described as an “activist”
, but whether in reading the articles, the agents of persecution may attribute to the Applicant a level of activism sufficient to put him at risk. As explained by the Supreme Court of Canada in Canada (Attorney General) v. Ward, [1993] 2 S.C.R. 689, “the political opinion ascribed to the claimant and for which he or she fears persecution need not necessarily conform to the claimant's true beliefs. The examination of the circumstances should be approached from the perspective of the persecutor, since that is the perspective that is determinative in inciting the persecution. The political opinion that lies at the root of the persecution, therefore, need not necessarily be correctly attributed to the claimant.”
[21] Further, there is a chance that the problematic treatment of the Media Reports may have tainted the Officer’s overall assessment of the Applicant’s risk profile.
[22] A reasonable decision must be based on “internally coherent reasoning”
that a reviewing Court can trace without “encountering any fatal flaws in its underlying logic”
or a “irrational chain of analysis”
: Vavilov at 102-103. The reasons here fall short of that mark and therefore the decision will be set-aside.
Email this Content