Date: 20000524
Docket: IMM-2189-99
BETWEEN:
JEROME D"ROZARIO
ANTHONIA D"ROZARIO
Applicants
-and-
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
DAWSON J.
[1] The applicants, 61 year old Jerome D"Rozario and his wife 47 year old Anthonia D"Rozario, are citizens of Bangladesh.
[2] They seek status as Convention refugees, basing their claims to a well founded fear of persecution on the grounds of political opinion, religion, and membership in a particular social group (Christians in Bangladesh and, for Mrs. D"Rozario, a woman in Bangladesh).
[3] The Refugee Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the "Board") dismissed the applicants" claims to be Convention refugees. The Board found their evidence implausible, contrived, lacking in trustworthiness, and not credible. It also found that the claims were not objectively well founded due to a change in government which occurred since the applicants left Bangladesh.
[4] I have reviewed the record before the Board.
[5] Notwithstanding the forceful submissions of counsel for the applicants, I have concluded that the Board"s determination that Mr. and Mrs. D"Rozario are not Convention refugees was a conclusion which was reasonably open to the Board on the record before it.
[6] While it was fairly conceded by counsel for the respondent that the Board did err in stating that the applicants had not made a claim in the United States for refugee status, and further erred in concluding that the applicants claimed refugee status in Canada three weeks after entering the country (as opposed to three weeks before entering the country) I accept the submission of counsel for the respondent that these findings were not made in the context of the main finding in respect of credibility. Rather, the Board"s erroneous findings were additional findings made in the context of the Board"s determination of the well foundedness on an objective basis of the claimants" fear of persecution.
[7] There were a number of grounds cited by the Board upon which it determined that the applicants were not credible.
[8] The Board made an adverse credibility finding from the fact that Mr. D"Rozario could not name any fundamentalist groups in Bangladesh notwithstanding that he had identified two such groups in his Personal Information Form as being his agents of persecution. The Board drew an adverse inference from the failure, three and a half months after the hearing, of the applicants" counsel to provide a further letter from the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council when the applicants" counsel knew that the failure to provide such letter could well bear on the Board"s credibility finding. The Board concluded that Mr. D"Rozario"s evidence concerning an incident which was said to have occurred on March 3, 1994 was contrived. In this regard the Board"s finding was as follows:
| The panel further finds that the alleged incident of March 3, 1994, is too contrived to be true. The panel finds it implausible that, if it were true that the claimant had found out that he was being targeted and that the Islamic fundamentalists were so fanatic that they would go to [any] extent to inflict harm on him and his family, he would decide to leave his wife behind notwithstanding his allegation that the fundamentalists - armed and all - were already just outside his house seemingly determined to attack. The panel finds the claimant"s explanation for his behaviour - that is, that he had actually thought that his wife was safe even in the context of such a vicious attack - to be totally unreasonable. The panel finds it reasonable to expect the claimant, supposedly an actively-involved member of the Unity Council, to be cognizant of the fact that religious fundamentalists are not known to spare the family of members of those whom they are determined to harm. |
[9] Mr. D"Rozario"s testimony about this incident was as follows:
| CLAIMANT #1 I was busily concerned about myself and I was thinking that if they come and they find me, they are going to kill me. So, I knew that if they find my wife, they would not kill her. |
| RCO And you couldn"t both escape together? |
| CLAIMANT #1 I told her to come along with me through the back door, and she said no, probably they are not going to say anything. If they say anything to me, I"m going to request they don"t do anything to me. |
[10] The Board"s conclusions regarding credibility were reasonably supported by the evidence. In my view, its conclusion as to the applicants" credibility would have been the same regardless of the Board"s erroneous statements with respect to the absence of a claim for refugee status in the United States and the timing of the claim to refugee status in Canada.
[11] Therefore, I have concluded that this application for judicial review should be dismissed.
[12] Counsel are agreed that this case raises no question for certification.
"Eleanor R. Dawson"
Judge
Ottawa, Ontario
May 24, 2000