Date: 19990608
Docket: IMM-2176-98
Between :
GUILLERMO ARIEL OVALLE RAMIREZ
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
PINARD, J. :
[1] The applicant seeks judicial review of a decision of the Refugee Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the Board) dated April 1, 1998, in which the Board determined he was not a Convention refugee as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Immigration Act (the Act).
[2] The Board made the following basic findings:
| The claimant is not a Convention refugee according to section 2(1) of the Immigration Act because he was not found credible. Moreover, the panel noted that the claimant delayed claiming refugee status for several weeks. This is not consistent with a well-founded fear of persecution. The panel does not share the claimant's opinion about the current situation which prevails in Chile. Lastly, counsel submitted that compelling reasons [Immigration Act, s.s. 2(3)] apply in this case. The panel does not agree. |
[3] The Board denied the claim for the following specific reasons:
| - the Board gave little weight to the psychological assessment as it felt the origin of his trauma was his divorce and not the alleged persecution; |
| - the Board felt that there were implausibilities surrounding the alleged harassment his customers had undergone; |
| - the Board found that his communist past did not taint his relationship with the church; |
| - the Board did not find it plausible that the applicant would still attract the attention of the police or the army for non-political activities since democracy was restored to Chile in 1983; |
| - there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the State cannot protect him. |
[4] Finally, the Board did not find there were compelling reasons under subsection 2(3) of the Act to warrant the applicant being accepted as a refugee.
[5] In Aguebor v. M.E.I. (1993), 160 N.R. 315, Décary J.A., writing for the Federal Court of Appeal, described the restraint that must be applied in respect of a finding of credibility by this sort of tribunal, at page 316:
| There is no longer any doubt that the Refugee Division, which is a specialized tribunal, has complete jurisdiction to determine the plausibility of testimony: who is in a better position than the Refugee Division to gauge the credibility of an account and to draw the necessary inferences? As long as the inferences drawn by the tribunal are not so unreasonable as to warrant our intervention, its findings are not open to judicial review. . . . |
[6] Furthermore, the Board's view that the applicant is not credible amounts in fact to a conclusion that there is no credible basis to justify the claim for refugee status at issue here. In Sheikh v. Canada (M.E.I.), [1990] 3 F.C. 238, at page 244, Justice MacGuigan stated for the Federal Court of Appeal:
| The concept of "credible evidence" is not, of course, the same as that of the credibility of the applicant, but it is obvious that where the only evidence before a tribunal linking the applicant to his claim is that of the applicant himself (in addition, perhaps, to "country reports" from which nothing about the applicant's claim can be directly deduced), a tribunal's perception that he is not a credible witness effectively amounts to a finding that there is no credible evidence on which the second-level tribunal could allow his claim. |
[7] In the case at bar, upon reviewing the evidence, I consider that the applicant has not discharged the burden of showing that the inferences drawn by the Board could not reasonably have been drawn. Without necessarily endorsing the Board's analysis of the facts in its entirety, especially with respect to the time when democracy was restored in Chile, I am of the opinion that the above findings are generally supported by the evidence and that, taken as a whole, they could allow the Board to conclude as it did.
[8] As for the applicant's argument that the Board members' refusal to hear further testimony on his political activities for the church was a breach of natural justice, it is without merit. Upon reviewing the transcript of the proceedings, including pages 32 and 33, I do not see any interference by the Board which was unwarranted and which resulted in a denial of natural justice.
[9] Consequently, the application for judicial review is dismissed.
JUDGE
OTTAWA, ONTARIO
June 8, 1999