Date: 20030630
Docket: IMM-3459-02
Citation: 2003 FCT 791
Toronto, Ontario, June 30th, 2003
Present: The Honourable Madam Justice Simpson
BETWEEN:
JUSAIAPPU GABRIEL
Applicant
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER AND ORDER
[1] This is an application for judicial review (the "Application") of a decision of the Convention Refugee Determination Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the "Board") dated July 8, 2002 in which the Board decided that the Applicant was not a convention refugee (the "Decision").
[2] The Applicant is a 57 year old Tamil businessman who speaks English and Sinhala. He testified that his work transporting rice required him to drive back and forth between his home in the city of Batticaloa in a Tamil section of eastern Sri Lanka and Colombo.
[3] Applicant's counsel submitted that the Board erred when it concluded that it was implausible that, over a three month period, the Applicant made trips in and out of Tamil Tiger and Sri Lankan Army territory without any official travel or identity documents and, because his most recent National Identity Card ("NIC") showed his permanent residence as Colombo, they rejected his evidence that he lived in Batticaloa and his explanation that his landlord in Colombo had helped him obtain an admittedly fraudulent NIC which showed Colombo instead of Batticaloa as his permanent address. The Board concluded that the NIC was correct and that Colombo was, in fact, his home. I have found no reviewable error in this reasoning.
[4] The Board also concluded that the Applicant did not travel to Batticaloa on a regular basis. In this regard, the Applicant submits that the Board erred when it failed to assess the objective basis for his fear of persecution as a 57 year old Tamil businessman living in Colombo who, until 1997, had an NIC showing that he was from a Tamil area of eastern Sri Lanka.
[5] However, I have been unable to accept this submission because at, page 2 of the Decision, the Board said:
There is documentary evidence to support a well-founded fear of persecution for some Sri Lankan Tamils. The documentary evidence does not, however, support a finding that every Tamil who happens to have been born in the east of Sri Lanka faces a serious possibility of persecution for Convention refugee grounds in Sri Lanka. The profile of the claimant as a 57-year-old man is not that of a Tamil for whom there is a serious possibility of persecution, that is, younger Tamils recently from the north or east of Sri Lanka. The claimant is therefore not of the profile targeted by the authorities.
[6] As well, the Board addressed the Applicant's particular circumstances when it said at page 6 of the Decision:
The panel acknowledges that the claimant suffered two serious occurrences of harassment and beating at the hands of the Sri Lankan army and Colombo police in 2001. However, the panel finds that these two incidents fail to meet the threshold of persecution, which would include acts that are "persistent and systematic infliction of punishment". The claimant himself testified that his NIC with a Colombo address generally provided him with safety, and that when he was stopped at checkpoints that NIC would help. The panel finds that there is no more than a mere possibility that the claimant would face persecution should he return to Colombo.
ORDER
For all these reasons I have not been persuaded by either the material on file or the oral submissions made by counsel in Toronto on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 that the Board made a reviewable error. Accordingly, and since no question was posed for certification, the Application is hereby dismissed.
"Sandra J. Simpson"
J.F.C.C.
FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA
TRIAL DIVISION
NAMES OF COUNSEL AND SOLICITORS OF RECORD
DOCKET: IMM-3459-02
STYLE OF CAUSE: JUSAIAPPU GABRIEL
Applicant
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
PLACE OF HEARING: TORONTO, ONTARIO
DATE OF HEARING: JUNE 24, 2003
REASONS FOR ORDER
AND ORDER BY: SIMPSON J.
DATED: JUNE 30, 2003
APPEARANCES: Ms. Lani Gozlan
For the Applicant
Ms. Mary Matthews
For the Respondent
SOLICITORS OF RECORD: Max Berger & Associates
Barristers and Solicitors
Toronto, Ontario
For the Applicant
Morris Rosenberg
Deputy Attorney General of Canada
For the Respondent
FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA
Date: 20030630
Docket: IMM-3459-02
BETWEEN:
JUSAIAPPU GABRIEL
Applicant
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
AND ORDER
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