Date: 20101125
Docket: IMM-156-10
Citation: 2010 FC 1166
[UNREVISED ENGLISH CERTIFIED
TRANSLATION]
Ottawa, Ontario, the 25th day of November, 2010
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Pinard
BETWEEN:
Luis Alberto ORTEGA ORTEGA,
Nayeli
ORTIZ MARTINEZ
Applicants
and
MINISTER
OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR
JUDGMENT AND JUDGMENT
[1]
This is an application
for judicial review of a decision of the Refugee Protection Division of the
Immigration and Refugee Board (the panel) dated December 17, 2009, wherein
the panel determined that the applicants were not “Convention refugees” or “persons
in need of protection” within the meaning of sections 96 and 97 respectively of
the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, S.C. 2001, c. 27.
[2]
The applicants are
Mexican citizens. The principal applicant, Mr. Ortega Ortega, alleged that
he was harassed and threatened with death by Sergio Tovar, from whom he had
borrowed MXN$40,000 in August 2006, promising to pay the money back in
December 2006. The male applicant paid back $10,000, but Tovar had
increased the interest, and, in January 2007, the male applicant was
forced to sign an acknowledgement of debt stating that he owed Tovar $60,000. When
the time came for the male applicant to pay, Tovar became aggressive. Feeling
that their lives were at risk, the applicants moved several times within Mexico, but Tovar found them each time.
[3]
The male applicant
filed a complaint only once with the Public Prosecutor’s office and alleged that
the police would not have accepted the complaint because he had had no evidence.
Subsequently, the principal applicant was assaulted, and his attacker, armed
with a gun, fired into the air. Nevertheless, the male applicant did not file a
complaint because, according to him, the police required overwhelming evidence
and would not have assisted him. The female applicant was also assaulted but
did not file a complaint for the same reason.
[4]
The principal applicant
left Mexico on March 7, 2008, and came to
Montréal. He made a claim for refugee protection on April 7, 2008. The
female applicant left Mexico on December 16, 2008; she claimed refugee
protection in Canada that same day.
[5]
After having stressed
that the male applicant’s credibility was not generally in issue, the panel
rejected the claim for refugee protection on the ground that, had the
applicants sought it, state protection in Mexico would have been adequate. The panel rejected the applicants’
explanations that the State would not have assisted them and found that there
were state agencies other than the Public Prosecutor’s office, such as the
Attorney General of the Republic and Human Rights Commission. The panel
referred to the documentary evidence to determine that anyone could file a
complaint in Mexico, where this type of complaint was admissible.
[6]
The standard of review
is reasonableness (Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 190, paragraph 51, and Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v. Khosa, [2009] 1 S.C.R. 339, paragraph 59).
The applicants are challenging the panel’s reasons pertaining to issues dealing
with the assessment of the evidence, an aspect that is clearly within the panel’s
jurisdiction and regarding which the Court should not substitute its own view
unless the decision were found to be arbitrary or to lack transparency.
[7]
The applicants claimed
that the documentary evidence showed that the Mexican police were corrupt and involved
with organized crime and that the Mexican Parliament did nothing to improve the
chaotic security situation. The contended that the State had no control over
its territory, since drug trafficking had corrupted the police, courts and military.
Thus, the applicants submitted that state protection was not available and that
no entity could protect them against Tovar. The applicants cited various
documents in support of their claim. However, only one of these documents was
part of the documentation before the panel at the time of its decision. Consequently,
any references by the applicants to document MEX42974.E, Mexico: State Protection (December 2003–March 2005) and to the 2005Amnesty International report,
which were not before the panel, cannot be taken into account.
[8]
The applicants cited
the document that was part of the documentary evidence before the panel (Document 10.1,
May 2004) to try to show that the Mexican justice system was slow and that
the police were ineffective when investigating complaints. The applicants
claimed that the panel should have mentioned this document in its decision. However,
it is well established that the panel need not mention or analyze each item of
evidence before it, when its conclusion is otherwise reasonable in light of the
evidence as a whole (see Hassan v. Canada (M.E.I.) (1992), 147 N.R. 317
(F.C.A.)).
[9]
In my opinion, the panel
did not err in its conclusion on state protection. I find that the passage from
Document 10.1 quoted by the applicants, while it notes that Mexico’s justice system is not always the most effective,
does not contradict the conclusion of the panel, which, citing various documents
from the National Documentation Package, determined that the police accepted
such complaints as those of the applicants. The panel found that the applicants
had failed to show that they had made sufficient efforts to obtain state
protection, which does not seem to be an unreasonable conclusion given that
they filed only one single complaint.
[10]
For all of these
reasons, the application for judicial review is dismissed.
[11]
No question is
certified.
JUDGMENT
The application for judicial review of the decision of the
Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board dated December 17,
2009, is dismissed.
“Yvon Pinard”
Certified true
translation
Tu-Quynh Trinh
Federal Court
SOLICITORS OF RECORD
Docket: IMM-156-10
STYLE OF CAUSE: Luis Alberto ORTEGA ORTEGA, Nayeli ORTIZ MARTINEZ v. MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
PLACE OF HEARING: Montréal, Quebec
DATE OF HEARING: October 20, 2010
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
AND JUDGMENT BY: PINARD J.
DATED: November
25, 2010
Appearances:
Manuel Centurion FOR
THE APPLICANTS
Zoé Richard
Sara Gauthier FOR
THE RESPONDENT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
Manuel Antonio Centurion FOR
THE APPLICANTS
Montréal, Quebec
Myles J. Kirvan FOR
THE RESPONDENT
Deputy Attorney General of Canada
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