FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA
(Trial Division)
IMM-1457-97
B E T W E E N:
SALAH MOHAMED M. ELAWY,
Applicant
- v -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION,
Respondent
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Held before the Honourable Mr. Justice Teitelbaum in Courtroom 7, 330 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario on Wednesday March 18, 1998.
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REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
(Delivered orally from the Bench
at Toronto, Ontario on March 18, 1998)
APPEARANCES:
Arlene Tinkler for the Applicant
Godwin Friday for the Respondent
Caterina Chiocchio - Registrar
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Toronto Court Reporters
Suite 1410, 65 Queen Street West
Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2M5
(416) 364-2065
Per: Sarah Nicholson, CVR.
HIS LORDSHIP: I can give you my decision now but you might want some reasons, but I see really no merit to the application. I say that with the utmost of respect for counsel for the Applicant. I think I will give you my decision right away. I don't have to go through all of the facts because both of you know the facts as well as I do.
I see no comparison -- and I say this again with the utmost of respect to counsel for the Applicant -- between the factual situation in the present case and the factual situation in the Ward case; I just simply don't see it.
In the present case, I have read the decision of the Board and it is not a question of whether I agree or disagree with their final conclusion, I cannot -- I cannot come to any other conclusion than that it is a most reasonable type of decision and based on the evidence that they had before them.
As I said, with regard to the first issue raised by counsel for the Applicant, I see no comparison between Ward and the factual situation in the present case. In the present case, I agree entirely with the members of the Board that, if anything, it may be a criminal act that's involved but certainly not a political act.
The reasoning of the Board with regard to the Applicant leaving Egypt is more than reasonable, and the Board does have the right to say that what they have read is simply implausible, based on all of the facts that they had.
I agree with the members of the Board that if the Government of Egypt wanted the Applicant, they wouldn't simply have fingerprinted him after he had not shown up for the trial; and this was after he was released by the members of the Jihad.
If my memory serves me correctly, the Applicant was picked up in order to prevent him from appearing at the trial to give evidence. After a number of days where he was beaten, he was released. If the members of the Jihad perceived the Applicant as a political enemy, they wouldn't have simply let him go, to then later on possibly go and testify against their person who was writing the examination.
And the Egyptian authorities, if they perceived him as a political enemy and in favour of the Jihad, they simply wouldn't have said to him, "Okay, give us your fingerprints and we'll let you come back". The reasoning of the Board in their decision cannot be faulted in any way.
And I have a great respect for counsel for the applicant but you can't do what is impossible and I think it would have been virtually impossible to find reasons to overturn the decision of the Board.
The application is dismissed. My reasons are the ones that I'm giving now but I'll correct my grammar, et cetera.
Thank you both very very much.
---HEARING ADJOURNED AT 10.15 A.M.
CERTIFIED CORRECT:
Sarah Nicholson, CVR.
Reporter.