Date: 19990211
Docket: IMM-1481-98
BETWEEN:
SERGE RUMB
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
| REED, J. (Revised version of reasons given orally) |
[1] The test to be applied is set out in section 18.1 of the Federal Court Act, that is, is the Board's decision, capricious, perverse, made without regard to the evidence before it. I cannot so find.
[2] I see little distinction between the describing of the claim as being based on membership in a social group (perceived hutu supporter) and being based on that of political opinion (being perceived as holding the opinions of a hutu supporter). The Board addressed the issue as the claimant had described it: he was concerned that he would be perceived as a hutu supporter.
[3] I am mindful of the fact, as counsel for the respondent noted, that the incidents that gave rise to his fear took place 600 k.m. or more from where he lived, when he was there to purchase corn. It took place on the border region at the time of the invasion. He stated that he gave refuge to two hutus for a couple of hours and subsequently spoke to a reporter. He is not a hutu; he is not a hutu supporter; he had not been politically active in any way. The Board's decision in not accepting those circumstances as sufficient to establish a serious possibility of persecution everywhere in the Congo is not a perverse or capricious decision.
[4] I do not think the Board was as oblivious to the plight of hutus in the Congo outside the Great Lakes region as counsel argues. One must not read a Board's decision microscopically but rather in the context of the whole. If this decision is read in that way it leads to the conclusion that it does not contain any of the errors set out in section 18.1
[5] Insofar as the IFA is concerned, a disintegrating infrastructure is not equivalent to a dessert, or to a battle zone. In the first place, one must be careful when comparing the infrastructures of countries that the standard of our own is not held up as the required standard. There are many countries where telephones do not work well or all the time, where the roads are very very poor, where electricity only works at certain times. These conditions are not such however, that a person can say they cannot live in that country because it is not practical (reasonable) to do so. The Board was not in error in failing to assess the deteriorating infrastructure as a reason the applicant could not live in Kinshasa or elsewhere in the Congo.
[6] For the reasons given the application will be dismissed.
"B. Reed"
Judge
Toronto, Ontario
February 11, 1999
FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA
Names of Counsel and Solicitors of Record
COURT NO: IMM-1481-98
| STYLE OF CAUSE: SERGE RUMB |
- and -
| THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
DATE OF HEARING: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1999
PLACE OF HEARING: TORONTO, ONTARIO
REASONS FOR ORDER BY: REED J.
DATED: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1999
APPEARANCES: Mr. Micheal Crane
For the Applicant
Ms. Sudabeh Mashkuri
For the Respondent
SOLICITORS OF RECORD: Michael Crane
Morris Rosenberg
Deputy Attorney General
of Canada
For the Respondent
FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA
Date: 19990211
Docket: IMM-1481-98
Between:
Applicant
- and -
| THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
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