Date: 20060825
Docket: IMM-4890-05
Citation: 2006 FC 1020
Ottawa, Ontario,
August 25, 2006
PRESENT: The Honourable
Mr. Justice de Montigny
BETWEEN:
ABUDUAZEEZ ADETUNJI KESHIRO
(a.k.a. Abudu-Azeez Ade Keshiro)
Applicant
and
MINISTER
OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR
JUDGMENT
[1]
This
is an application for judicial review of a decision of the Refugee Protection
Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the Board) in which it
determined that the applicant was neither a Convention refugee nor a person in
need of protection.
[2]
The applicant claims to be a citizen of Nigeria, where he states he
was subject to persecution on the basis of his homosexuality. He states that he
began a homosexual relationship with his partner, Lukmon, in approximately
1994. He claims that Lukmon’s girlfriend caught the two being intimate in 2004,
and subsequently blackmailed the men and reported them to an extremist Muslim
group. The applicant further reports that Lukmon was murdered on or around August
10, 2004 and that he himself received death threats from the same group. The
applicant also indicates that the police came to his home on August 29, 2004,
stating that the applicant was wanted for “homosexuality and accessory to
murder”. He therefore fled to Canada on November 1, 2004 and claimed refugee
status shortly thereafter. His refugee claim was rejected by the Board in a
decision dated July 20, 2005.
[3]
The Board first considered several documents that the applicant
submitted in order to establish his identity. The applicant’s birth certificate
was rejected as the birth weight and length were not filled in, and the birth
parents’ names were not noted. Confronted with this lack of information, the
applicant was apparently unable to explain it. The Board also considered two
driver’s licenses that the applicant submitted. It rejected them because of
unexplained disparities in the recorded height and in the address of the
issuing office. The Board also questioned the fact that both licenses were
valid during the same period of time. Finally, the Board rejected the passport
proffered by the applicant based on the fact that he did not list this document
on his PIF, and based on its finding that the applicant’s explanation for how
he received the passport (i.e. that his brother in Nigeria was able to obtain
it for him despite outstanding murder charges) was untenable. As a result, the
Board found that the applicant had provided no trustworthy original identity
documents, and as such had not discharged the burden of establishing his
identity pursuant to section 106 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection
Act (IRPA).
[4]
The Board then proceeded to assess the applicant’s fear of persecution.
First, it considered a document that was purportedly the death certificate of
the applicant’s alleged partner, Lukmon. The Board rejected it, citing
inconsistencies between the alleged death certificate and the applicant’s
testimony with regard to Lukmon’s height, age, occupation, and the date of
death. In the Board’s view, this finding was buttressed by the fact that during
his testimony, the applicant was unable to state his partner’s address. The
Board also considered an obituary notice purporting to establish Lukmon’s
death. The Board rejected this document because it contained various spelling
mistakes, including the word “Obituary” itself. The applicant’s explanation for
these errors, to the effect that “everything is bribery”, was not considered
satisfactory by the Board. Finally, the Board found there were a number of spelling
errors and inconsistencies in the Police Report Extract, and that the dates the
extremist group was alleged to have come to the applicant’s home were
inconsistent with the applicant’s testimony. As such, the Board held that the
applicant had failed to establish a well-founded fear of persecution and
rejected his refugee claim.
[5]
The only issue to be determined in this judicial review application is
whether the Board erred in finding that the applicant failed to establish his
identity and key aspects of his claim.
[6]
Insofar as the impugned decision is based on credibility findings, it is
entitled to a high level of deference and should be reviewed on the standard of
patent unreasonableness: Aguebor v. Canada (Minister of
Employment and Immigration) (F.C.A.) (1993), 160 N.R. 315, [1993] F.C.J.
No. 732 (QL). As held by the Supreme Court of Canada, the standard of patent
unreasonableness mandates that this Court should not interfere with a decision
unless “there is no line of analysis within the given reasons that could
reasonably lead the tribunal from the evidence before it to the conclusion at
which it arrived”: Law Society of New Brunswick v. Ryan,
2003 SCC 20, [2003] 1 S.C.R. 247, [2003] S.C.J. No. 17 (QL). In Shafi v. Canada
(Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [2005] F.C.J. No. 896,
my colleague Justice Phelan set out the consequences of applying such a
standard of review:
The Officer’s
factual conclusions can only be reviewed on a standard of patent
unreasonableness which is defined as “unreasonableness on its face, unsupported
by evidence, or vitiated by failure to consider proper factors or failure to
apply appropriate procedures”. The decision is said to be patently unreasonable
where “…it was made arbitrarily or in bad faith, it cannot be supported by the
evidence or the Minister…failed to consider appropriate factors”. Suresh
v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration),
[2002] 1 S.C.R. 3, at paragraphs 41 and 29.
[7]
The same standard should be applied to the Board’s findings with regard
to identity and authenticity of documents. This Court has indeed come to that
conclusion in a number of recent decisions, including Ogiriki v. Canada
(Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2006 FC 342, [2006]
F.C.J. No. 420 (QL); Li v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration), 2006 FC 296, [2006] F.C.J. No. 368 (QL); Egbokheo v.
Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2006 FC 163, [2006]
F.C.J. No. 285 (QL).
[8]
In the present case, a careful review of the record and of the parties’
submissions has not convinced me that the Board erred in concluding the
applicant was not a Convention refugee or a person in need of protection in
accordance with sections 96 and 97(1)(a) of the IRPA. It may be that some of
the inconsistencies raised by the Board were minor, but taken as a whole, and
in conjunction with the flawed identity documents, they were clearly sufficient
to entitle the Board to find problems with the applicant’s credibility.
[9]
The Board’s determination that the applicant did not establish his
identity is not patently unreasonable, given the numerous omissions,
inconsistencies and implausibilities regarding the identity documents. The
birth certificate was undated, did not provide a birth weight, and did not
state the names of the applicant’s parents. The two driver’s licenses contained
inconsistent information regarding the applicant’s height, they were issued in
different states and the second one was delivered before the first one expired.
As for the passport, the applicant gave inconsistent information regarding its
existence. In evidence, he stated that it was in fact a second passport, issued
after he had left Nigeria and filled out his PIF, but did not explain why he
had not indicated the existence of any passport in his PIF (Transcript, p.11).
The Board also found the circumstances surrounding the issuance of this second
passport to be implausible.
[10]
The applicant has cited the case of Ngoyi v. Canada
(M.C.I.), [2000] F.C.J. No. 272 (QL), to support the proposition that minor
inconsistencies in documents cannot be used to uphold the Board’s negative
findings. I would note that in paragraph 14 of that case, Justice
Tremblay-Lamer stated that certain anomalies in the documents “are relatively
insignificant compared with the completely plausible explanations of the
applicant.” In the present case, the applicant was confronted, for example on
the inconsistencies in his evidence with regard to the driver’s licences (Transcript,
pp. 13-14), passport (Transcript, p. 17), and police report (Transcript, p. 25).
[11]
The Board also confronted the applicant about inconsistencies regarding
documents he provided to support his assertion of a well-founded fear of
persecution based on his homosexuality. For example, he was asked about the
contrast between information he gave about Lukmon, and information listed on
the death certificate, including details regarding Lukmon’s basic physical
characteristics, address, occupation, and date of death (Transcript, pp.
19-22). He could not provide a plausible explanation for these inconsistencies.
[12]
The applicant argues that the Board erred by failing to provide expert
analysis of the documents adduced in evidence. Although expert analysis may be
desirable or necessary in some cases, the Board has no obligation to order expert
analysis where there is enough evidence to discredit its authenticity. As
recently stated by my colleague Justice Barnes in Jin v. Canada
(Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2006 FC 126, [2006] F.C.J. No.
181 (QL), at paragraph 19:
While it is correct
that the Board is not itself an expert in the field of forensic analysis, it
also has no duty to submit suspect documents for expert assessment provided
that there is sufficient evidence before it to cast doubt upon their
authenticity: see Culinescu v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration), [1997] FCJ No. 1200; Ibnmogdad v. Canada (Minister of
Citizenship and Immigration) 2004 FC 321 and Kashif v. Canada
(Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) 2003 FCT 179.
[13]
In my opinion, the Board had ample evidence before it to
discredit the authenticity of the documents offered in support of the
applicant’s claim, and it certainly cannot be said that the Board was patently
unreasonable in its findings.
[14]
For all of the foregoing reasons, I am of the view that this
application for judicial review must be dismissed. Neither of the parties
requested that a question be certified, and no questions will be certified.
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