Date: 20010829
Docket: IMM-1990-00
Neutral citation: 2001 FCT 961
BETWEEN:
SALWA ALI ABUSALIH
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP & IMMIGRATION
Respondent
[1] This is a judicial review of a decision of a visa officer which denied the applicant's application for permanent residence in the independent category as an Interpreter/Translator. The basis for the denial was that the applicant did not have at least one year of experience in the Interpreter/Translator occupation, as required by subsection 11(1) of the Immigration Regulations, 1978, SOR/78-172 as amended.
[2] The applicant said she had 19 months of experience working part-time as a French-Arabic translator for the Algerian Embassy in the Sudan in 1983 and 1984, and 6 months working as a French-Arabic translator for a newspaper in 1995. Crediting her with half-time for the period she worked for the Embassy and full-time for the newspaper would result in experience of over one year. The evidence contains letters from the Embassy and the general manager of the newspaper, certifying that the applicant had worked for them as a translator.
[3] The CAIPS notes indicate that during her interview, the applicant changed her story a number of times about whether her work for the Embassy was full- or part-time and how many hours per day she worked. The visa officer stated in the CAIPS notes "Credibility in doubt regarding experience as a translator, too many changes in her story ... her French is pretty good but not fluent and certainly not at the translator level ... EXPERIENCE AS A TRANSLATOR VERY QUESTIONABLE AT BEST".
[4] In dealing with the applicant's experience in his decision, the visa officer does not refer to the issue of credibility. Rather, his reason for not awarding units for experience is that the applicant was not fluent in French. In a short text she was asked to write, he found she made two major mistakes that affected the comprehension of the text. In addition, he found that her verbal answers in French were hesitant, that she was searching for some words and that she made some grammatical errors.
[5] The applicant says that since the visa officer did not question the credibility of her experience as a translator in his decision, he should have awarded her one unit of assessment for experience, based on the evidence of her work for the Embassy and the newspaper. This would have been sufficient for her to qualify, prima facie, for a visa, because even without that unit, she had achieved a score of 70 units.
[6] I am unable to agree with the applicant. The experience that is relevant is experience in the occupation in which the applicant is assessed under the NOC. The applicant does not deny that fluency is an employment requirement for an interpreter or a translator. The visa officer found that the applicant was not fluent in written or spoken French. From this, he inferred she did not have experience as a translator or interpreter, as that occupation is described in the NOC. This conclusion is entirely consistent with the credibility concern which the visa officer set forth in the CAIPS notes respecting the applicant's experience assertions.
[7] The applicant says the visa officer failed to address the letters from the Algerian Embassy and newspaper certifying her experience as a translator. However, what is at issue is her experience in the job as described in the NOC. For some occupations, a prior job description might be sufficient to demonstrate experience in a job as described in the NOC. For others, it may not. In the case of an Interpreter/Translator, the NOC requirement is fluency in the relevant languages. Even if the applicant had been a translator, there is no indication in the letters as to what level of fluency was required in that work. More specifically, the Embassy letter says the applicant was a translator of the French language to the Arabic language. The visa officer found the applicant's ability to read French to be fluent, but that she only spoke and wrote French well. If her work at the Embassy was to translate written French into Arabic, she may well have performed translation work, but would not have acquired experience as a translator as described in the NOC.
[8] The applicant says she had not been involved in translation for some time and she was "rusty". That may be the case. However, that is a matter for the visa officer, and not the Court, to assess. It would appear, from the visa officer's assessments of the applicant's written and spoken French, that the errors she made were significant and caused him to conclude she was not fluent.
[9] The applicant says the visa officer gave her a point for occupational demand, which is only consistent with her being entitled to one unit for experience. The visa officer says in his affidavit:
I acknowledge that I did not change the ETF and Occupational demand points to zero when I made my decision that the applicant did not have the requisite experience in the occupation of translator. This was due to inadvertence and the fact that our CAIPS system is programmed to automatically enter the ETF and occupational demand units of assessments once I input into CAIPS the occupation being assessed by me. I should have gone back after my decision and manually changed these units to zero.
This is not a case of a visa officer trying to defend two inconsistent positions. He acknowledged his error and gave the reasons for it. The explanation is not unreasonable. There is no basis for believing the visa officer's assessment of one unit for occupational demand implied, notwithstanding what he wrote in his decision about experience, that he was, really, of the opinion that the applicant satisfied the experience requirement.
[10] The applicant says the visa officer erred when he wrote in the CAIPS notes that "she doesn't meet the requirement of bachelor degree in translation". The applicant says she has a degree in a "related discipline", namely a BA in French, and that this is a satisfactory employment requirement alternative. Assuming that a BA in French is a degree in a related discipline, the visa officer still found the applicant not to be fluent in spoken or written French and thus, not to have met the applicable employment requirement.
[11] The applicant says she was found by the visa officer to be fluent in English and since the NOC for translators, terminologists and interpreters is not language-specific, and that her application was not language specific, the visa officer should have assessed her as an English-Arabic translator or interpreter.
[12] It is true that the NOC job description for translators, terminologists and interpreters is not expressed in language-specific terms. However, the context of the NOC and practicality make it obvious that applicants are to be assessed according to a specific language or languages. The NOC states, in part:
Translators, terminologists and interpreters specialize in a particular language, such as French, English, Russian or Spanish, and may specialize in a particular technical area, such as law, medicine or agriculture.
The applicant presented herself as a French-Arabic translator/interpreter. It was in that context that she was making her application. The visa officer did not err in assessing her as a French-Arabic translator/interpreter and not as an English-Arabic translator/interpreter.
[13] Further, as earlier indicated, a bachelor's degree in translation or a related discipline is an employment requirement. The applicant does not have a bachelor's degree in translation and her bachelor's degree in a related discipline, if any, is French and not English. Had the visa officer assessed her as an English-Arabic translator/interpreter, she still would not have had the academic qualifications to meet the employment requirement.
[14] While the visa officer's decision in this case might have been more carefully prepared, I am not persuaded that it is unreasonable.
[15] The judicial review will be dismissed.
"Marshall Rothstein"
Judge
Ottawa, Ontario
August 29, 2001