Federal Court Decisions

     IMM-1856-96

BETWEEN:

     RANJBAR SALIEH ALI

     Applicant

     - and -

     THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

     Defendant

     REASONS FOR ORDER

THE ASSOCIATE CHIEF JUSTICE:

     This is an application for an Order setting aside the decision of the Convention Refugee Determination Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board that the applicant is not a Convention refugee. The decision was communicated to the applicant on May 16, 1996. At the hearing of this matter in Toronto, Ontario, on February 26, 1997, I dismissed the application, indicating that these written reasons would follow.

     The applicant is an Iraqi citizen of Kurdish ethnicity. He came to Canada on October 16, 1994, and made a claim to Convention refugee status. He claimed to have a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of his political opinion and membership in a particular social group, that being Kurdish. He claimed that he was arrested and tortured by Iraqi authorities, who questioned him on whether he was a member of the Kurdish freedom fighters. The Refugee Division found that the applicant's testimony dealing with central aspects of his claim was not credible, and that there was no credible or trustworthy evidence upon which to determine the applicant to be a Convention refugee.

     The applicant seeks to have the Refugee Division's decision set aside on the basis of natural justice and error in law.

     This application cannot succeed, and the reason for this is fairly simple. The decision of the Convention Refugee Determination Division [hereinafter, the "Tribunal"] turned on adverse findings of credibility. The issue of credibility is probably the one area in which we owe the greatest deference to the Tribunal in every case. The reason for this is twofold. First, because of its experience in refugee cases in general, the Tribunal has experience in judging whether these kinds of stories are reasonable and have the ring of truth to them. Second, and more importantly, the Tribunal has the opportunity to see the claimant personally. The Tribunal hears the testimony, and much of its judgment is based on the demeanour of the claimant.

     Of course, the Tribunal cannot sustain its decision on a finding of adverse credibility unless it can support it with a number of illustrations that properly relate to the testimony before them. In this case, the illustrations with which the Tribunal supports its adverse finding of credibility are not only substantial in number, but they are also dealt with in considerable detail. The Tribunal found numerous improbabilities in the claimant's testimony, as well as instances where the claimant's testimony either contradicted itself or the information contained in his Personal Information Form.

     The Tribunal appropriately cited the decision of Mr. Justice MacGuigan of the Federal Court of Appeal in Sheikh v. Minister of Employment and Immigration, [1990] 3 F.C. 238, on the subject of credibility. The Tribunal was properly conscious of its responsibility with respect to findings of credibility both in fact and in law.

     The Tribunal considered the medical and psychiatric evidence before it, and made no error in the weight that it accorded to that evidence. The medical and psychiatric evidence neither supports nor weakens the applicant's case.

     In conclusion, this is not an appropriate case for me to override the finding of adverse credibility. Accordingly, on February 26, 1997, I dismissed this application for judicial review.

O T T A W A

April 28, 1997                      "James A. Jerome"

                             A.C.J.