Date: 20100305
Docket: IMM-4252-09
Citation: 2010 FC 256
Ottawa, Ontario, March 5, 2010
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Martineau
BETWEEN:
HAZELL
URENIA ISAACS ET AL
Applicants
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT AND JUDGMENT
[1]
The
applicants, Ms. Hazell Isaacs and her three children, as well as her sister, Keisha
Isaacs, and her minor daughter, are citizens of St. Vincent and the
Grenadines
(SVG). They are challenging the legality of a decision of the Refugee
Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the panel), dated
August 4, 2009, rejecting their claim for refugee protection.
[2]
The
principal applicants, Hazell and Keisha, are the daughters of Ms. Lisa Ava
Isaacs, who herself obtained refugee status on February 17, 2005. The principal
applicants allege that their mother’s former spouse (namely, the same man their
mother feared, a man named Duncan) had assaulted and raped them when they
were young. Essentially, the panel found them not to be credible; furthermore, they
failed to discharge their burden of proof in showing that state protection was
not available to them.
[3]
As
for Keisha, she testified that Duncan had raped her when she was ten years old
and not sixteen, as she had stated in her PIF. She was unable to explain this
discrepancy other than to retort that she did not always remember everything
but that she had flashbacks from time to time. Moreover, in her own mother’s
PIF there is no mention of Keisha having been raped by Duncan, yet there is a
reference to an incident involving one of her other daughters.
[4]
As
for Hazell, she claims that the first incident with Duncan occurred
after her mother had left SVG. Given that the mother had left in 2002 and that
the incident described by the applicant in her PIF took place in 2006, the
panel asked her what had happened during the intervening four years. The
applicant stated that Duncan had raped her several times during that
period. When the panel inquired as to why she had not included this important
detail in her PIF, the applicant stated that the incident that occurred in 2006
was the first time Duncan had beaten her, and that this incident was
therefore different from the others. The panel was entitled to reject this
explanation.
[5]
As
for the details about the incident that had allegedly occurred in 2006, Hazell
did not mention in her PIF that Duncan had tried to get into
her house through the window. Moreover, the panel did not understand why she
would have gone out the door when Duncan was not inside the
house. She contradicted herself when she was asked if she had cried out when
she got out of the house. She stated that she only had one neighbour, but the
panel confronted her with photos submitted by the applicants that show a house
fairly close to Hazell’s. Finally, the panel found that the photos show that
the window through which Duncan allegedly tried to break in was quite high
up and seemed to be too small for an average-sized man to squeeze through.
[6]
The
panel also found it implausible that either Hazell’s spouse or Keisha’s husband
would have tolerated Duncan insulting, harassing or fondling their spouses,
especially given the fact that the photos submitted to the panel show Duncan to
be an elderly man.
[7]
In
the final analysis, this application for judicial review must fail because the
general finding of non-credibility can be reasonably supported by the evidence
in the record. The panel’s reasoning is clear and articulate. The many
contradictions and implausibilities noted by the panel emerge from the evidence
in the record. It also appears that the panel took the Chairperson’s
Guidelines Relating to Women Refugees Fearing Gender-Related Persecution into
account. When the panel found the applicants not to be credible, it also noted
that their testimony at the hearing was neither clear nor spontaneous. Moreover,
there are significant discrepancies between their testimony and the information
in their Personal Information Forms (PIFs).
[8]
In
this case, the panel’s findings are not seriously challenged by the applicants.
The reasonableness of the decision ‘‘is concerned
mostly with the existence of justification, transparency and intelligibility
within the decision-making process. But it is also concerned with whether the
decision falls within a range of possible, acceptable outcomes which are
defensible in respect of the facts and law’’ (Dunsmuir v. New
Brunswick, 2008 SCC 9, at paragraph 47). Regardless of the fact that the
applicants have explanations for the contradictions noted by the panel and that
they disagree with some of its findings of fact, the general finding of
non-credibility certainly falls within the range of possible, acceptable
outcomes.
[9]
Given
the legality of the general finding of non-credibility, there is no need to
visit the subsidiary issue of state protection.
[10]
For
the above reasons, the application for judicial review must be dismissed. No question
of general importance was raised by the parties.
JUDGMENT
THE COURT ORDERS that the application for judicial
review be dismissed. No question is certified.
‘‘Luc
Martineau’’
Certified
true translation
Sebastian
Desbarats, Translator
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