Date: 20120620
Docket: IMM-9289-11
Citation: 2012 FC 790
Toronto, Ontario, June 20,
2012
PRESENT: The Honourable Madam Justice Mactavish
BETWEEN:
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GUI QUAN ZHUO
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Applicant
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and
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THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
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Respondent
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REASONS FOR JUDGMENT AND
JUDGMENT
[1]
Gui Quan Zhuo seeks
judicial review of a negative decision of the Refugee Protection Division of
the Immigration and Refugee Board. Mr. Zhuo claims to fear persecution in China because of his Roman Catholic faith. The
Board rejected his claim on credibility
grounds.
[2]
For the reasons that
follow, Mr. Zhuo has not persuaded me that the Board’s decision was
unreasonable. As a consequence, his application for judicial review will be
dismissed.
Analysis
[3]
The Board provided a
number of reasons for finding Mr. Zhuo’s story to lack credibility. Mr. Zhuo
challenges some, but not all, of the Board’s negative credibility findings. The
disputed findings are discussed below.
The PSB Summons
[4]
Mr. Zhuo claims that
when the Public Security Bureau (PSB) raided his house church for a second
time, he escaped
and went into hiding. The PSB came looking for Mr. Zhuo at his home, and left a
summons with his family members. The Board examined the copy of the summons
produced by Mr. Zhuo, and
provided detailed reasons for concluding that it was not genuine.
[5]
Relying on the
decision in Lin v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2012
FC 288, [2012] F.C.J. No. 312 (QL), Mr. Zhuo says that the Board erred in
relying on a Board Response to Information Request (RIR) from 2004 as
establishing what a summons issued in 2009 would look like. The Board further
erred in comparing the summons produced by Mr. Zhuo to the examples attached to
the RIR, given that they were just that: examples, which did not purport to be
an exhaustive survey of the various forms that summonses could take. Finally,
Mr. Zhuo says that the Board erred in failing to take into account the fact
that there were regional variances in the procedures followed by the PSB.
[6]
Even if I were to
accept Mr. Zhuo’s arguments in this regard, the Board had a number of other
reasons for concluding that the summons was not genuine which he has not challenged.
One such reason was that the summons did not provide Mr. Zhuo with an address
telling him where he was to appear. As the Board pointed out, Mr. Zhuo lived in
a large city that would have multiple PSB offices. Its conclusion that a
genuine summons would inform Mr. Zhuo of where he was to report was, therefore,
entirely reasonable.
[7]
Mr. Zhuo has also not
challenged the Board’s finding that the document produced by him cited the wrong provision of
Chinese criminal law. Nor has he challenged the finding that the circumstances
described by Mr. Zhuo suggested that the PSB would have issued a Juzhaun
summons rather than the Zhaunhaun summons he provided.
[8]
I do not
accept Mr. Zhuo’s argument that the Board erred in finding that the summons was
suspect because it did not contain a section for an acknowledgement of receipt
when the document did in fact contain just such a section. While the language
used by the Board is not as precise as one might like, when this portion of the
Board’s analysis is read in its entirety it becomes apparent that the Board’s
real concern was that there was no signature on the document from a member of
Mr. Zhuo’s family acknowledging receipt of the document.
[9]
These
inconsistencies, combined with the availability
of fraudulent documents in China, led the Board to conclude that the
summons was not genuine. Mr. Zhuo has not persuaded me that this aspect of the
Board’s decision was unreasonable.
The PIF Omissions
[10]
The Board found Mr. Zhuo’s
credibility to be further undermined by the fact that several details of his
claim were not mentioned in his Personal Information Form (PIF). These included
the fact that his underground church was alleged to have been closed for two
months after a raid, the threats made to Mr. Zhuo’s parents by members of the
PSB, and his having been badly burned with a hot iron rod while in detention
leaving him with a large scar. Mr. Zhuo challenges the first two findings, but
has not challenged the third.
[11]
One could debate
whether the fact that Mr. Zhuo’s church was allegedly closed for two months
after the raid was so central to his claim that his failure to mention it in
his PIF necessarily impugned his credibility. That said, the Board’s finding
that this omission could not be explained by Mr. Zhuo’s nervousness when
preparing the PIF was entirely reasonable, especially considering that he was
represented by experienced counsel throughout the process.
[12]
More significant was
Mr. Zhuo’s failure to
mention that the PSB had threatened his parents in his PIF. The Board did not
accept Mr. Zhuo’s claim that such threats are commonplace in China as a reasonable explanation for this omission. This
omission was, moreover, directly relevant to Mr. Zhuo’s claim to fear religious
persecution in China, and was all the more problematic in
light of the fact that the PIF form specifically instructs claimants to
“indicate the measures taken against you and members of your family”.
The Board’s negative inference in this regard was therefore reasonably drawn.
Conclusion
[13]
Mr. Zhuo has thus not
persuaded me that the
Board’s conclusion that he was not credible, that he was not a practicing
Christian and that he had not been targeted by the PSB falls outside of the
range of possible acceptable outcomes which are defensible in light of the
facts and the law: see Dunsmuir v. New
Brunswick, 2008 SCC 9, [2008] 1 S.C.R.
190, at para. 47, and Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v. Khosa, 2009 SCC 12, [2009] 1 S.C.R. 339 at para. 59.
[14]
Given
my conclusion on these issues, it is not necessary for me to address Mr. Zhuo’s
arguments with respect to the risks faced by Roman Catholics in Fujian province.
[15]
For these reasons,
the application for judicial review is dismissed. I agree with the parties that
the case does not raise a question for certification.
JUDGMENT
THIS COURT ORDERS AND ADJUDGES that:
1. This application
for judicial review is dismissed; and
2. No serious
question of general importance is certified.
“Anne
Mactavish”
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