Date: 20050512
Docket: IMM-4081-04
Citation: 2005 FC 682
Ottawa, Ontario, this 12 day of May, 2005
Present: THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE O'REILLY
BETWEEN:
AHMET TEVFIK ATAS
Applicant
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT AND JUDGMENT
[1] Mr. Ahmet Tevfik Atas claims that he was mistreated by authorities in his native Turkey because of his Kurdish ethnicity. He claimed refugee protection in Canada primarily on the basis of his allegations of abuse by the army and the police. A panel of the Immigration and Refugee Board dismissed his claim due to a lack of credible and trustworthy evidence. Mr. Atas argues that the Board failed to give adequate reasons for disbelieving his testimony and asks me to order a new hearing.
[2] I can find no basis for overturning the Board's decision and must, therefore, dismiss this application for judicial review.
I. Issue
[3] Did the Board provide adequate reasons for disbelieving Mr. Atas's testimony?
II. Analysis
[4] The Board has a duty to set out its reasons for doubting an applicant's testimony in "clear and unmistakable terms": Hilo v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), [1991] F.C.J. No. 228 (C.A.) (QL), at para. 6. In Hilo, the Board had stated the following:
The claimant's testimony lacked detail and was sometimes inconsistent. He was often unable to answer questions and sometimes appeared uninterested in doing so. While this may be partly due to the claimant's young age, the panel was not fully satisfied of his credibility as a witness.
[5] There, the Federal Court of Appeal found that the Board's reasons were "ambiguous", "vague and general" and simply "cast a nebulous cloud" over the reliability of the applicant's evidence. It held that the Board should have identified specific areas where the applicant's testimony was unclear and inconsistent.
[6] In Mr. Atas's case, the Board said that he had "testified in a generally straightforward manner". However, it found his evidence unpersuasive in two areas.
[7] First, the Board did not believe Mr. Atas's allegation that he had been detained and assaulted by authorities in 1995. Mr. Atas testified that his truck was stopped by police, who detained him for an hour and then beat him. He said he suffered bruises but did not require medical attention. However, he also said he was bedridden for five days thereafter. He provided no medical evidence. The Board characterized his testimony about this incident as "vague" and concluded that the event did not happen. The Board did believe Mr. Atas's testimony about an earlier incident, in 1982, in which residents of his village were rounded up and beaten on suspicion of being political activists. Overall, though, the Board found that Mr. Atas had failed to provide credible and trustworthy evidence of serious and persistent mistreatment that would amount to persecution.
[8] Second, the Board did not believe that Mr. Atas had no information about how his daughter, who had abandoned her refugee claim here, was treated after she returned to Turkey. He was in regular contact with family members, but claimed they did not say anything to him about conditions in Turkey. The Board referred to Mr. Atas's testimony that his daughter had returned to Turkey because there were no English classes near their home in rural Ontario and her employment opportunities in Canada were limited. It concluded from that evidence that Mr. Atas's concerns about mistreatment in Turkey were speculative.
[9] Clearly, the Board accepted some of Mr. Atas's testimony but doubted parts of it. It did not reject his evidence in a sweeping or dismissive fashion. Where it failed to be persuaded, it provided reasons. True, the Board could have given fuller justification for its use of the word "vague" in relation to Mr. Atas's evidence about the 1995 incident. However, looking at the reasons as a whole, I cannot find that the Board's reasons were so deficient as to require the Court's intervention.
JUDGMENT
THIS COURT'S JUDGMENT IS that:
1. The application for judicial review is dismissed;
2. No question of general importance is stated.
Judge
FEDERAL COURT
NAMES OF COUNSEL AND SOLICITORS OF RECORD
DOCKET: IMM-4081-04
STYLE OF CAUSE: AHMET TEVFIK ATAS v. MCI
PLACE OF HEARING: TORONTO, ON
DATE OF HEARING: April 26, 2005
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
AND JUDGMENT BY: THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE O'REILLY
DATED: May 12, 2005
APPEARANCES BY:
Mr. Alex Billingsley FOR THE APPLICANT
Mr. Michael Butterfield FOR THE RESPONDENT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
ALEX BILLINGSLEY FOR THE APPLICANT
Toronto, ON
John H. Sims, Q.C. FOR THE RESPONDENT
Deputy Attorney General of Canada
Toronto, ON