Federal Court Decisions

     IMM-1135-96

BETWEEN:

     VASILE VALERIU MOLDOVAN

     Applicant

     - and -

     THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

     Respondent

     REASONS FOR ORDER

JEROME A.C.J.:

     This application for judicial review of the decision of the Convention Refugee Determination Division ("CRDD") of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada dated March 8, 1996, came on for hearing at Toronto, Ontario, on December 4, 1996. At the conclusion of argument, in oral reasons from the Bench, I dismissed the application and indicated that these brief written reasons would follow.

     Mr. Moldovan, a citizen of Romania, came to Canada in June of 1994. He claimed Convention refugee status on the basis of a well-founded fear of persecution in Romania by reason of his political opinion. A hearing was held before the Refugee Board on December 13, 1994 and on February 2, 1995. An interpreter proficient in the English and Romanian languages was present throughout the hearing.

     By decision dated March 8, 1996, the tribunal held that the applicant was not a Convention refugee as it found no credible basis for his claim. The tribunal stated in part at pages 3-4 of its reasons:

The panel does not find the evidence of the claimant honest and trustworthy, nor do we find that the claimant has a well-founded fear of persecution. The main incident resulting in this claimant's claim is a March 1990 verbal confrontation that the claimant said he had with the provisional President of Romania at an arms manufacturing plant where he worked and where he was the union head representative. There are several aspects about this part of the claimant's story that we do not find plausible or credible. There is no credible evidence that such a confrontation would be dangerous to the claimant. Furthermore, the panel believes that even [if] the events had occurred as the claimant stated, it was not for another four years, in 1994, that he left Romania to seek refugee status in Canada. Another consideration is that in spite of how hostile the claimant was with President Iliescu, he was not detained nor ever was he put into jail or held by any authorities. While the claimant indicated the strong dictatorial firm leadership of President Iliescu, the claimant was never persecuted by him or his agents.

The claimant indicated to the panel that he left Romania after the death of his friend and colleague, Ioan Rosca. However, when questioned about his close ties to Mr. Rosca the claimant told the panel that he had not had any association with or contact with Mr. Rosca for over one and a half years. The panel does not find this to be a close association nor could the claimant give the panel any factual basis on what the authorities would link them through. The panel does not believe that the accidental death, which the claimant would like to put into the context of a murder for his own purposes, and without any proof at all, in any way reflected a well-founded fear of persecution for the claimant. The claimant stated that he decided to hide in his own home, in his own village, from the authorities. The claimant's home would seem to be a very obvious place to seek out an individual and the panel does not believe that the claimant would have hidden in his own home if he had a well-founded fear of being persecuted by the authorities.

The panel notes numerous events which the claimant referred to as "luck" are not plausible or truthful: He was lucky enough to be able to bribe an official to get his passport issued right away, along with his family, although he had never tried this route for leaving the country before. Then he was lucky enough to get a United States visitor's visa to see the World cup Soccer game. He was lucky that he went to the Budapest Airport and that it was so overcrowded that day that he was never checked by security officials. He was also lucky to get his U.S. visa because he never produced the mandatory invitation letter he was required to have. He indicated that it was just by chance, luck, that he was able to leave in this manner. The panel does not find the claimant's evidence to be plausible or credible and we do not believe the circumstances of his departure have been told to us in a truthful or honest manner.

     The applicant now seeks to have the tribunal's decision set aside on the grounds that it ignored relevant evidence, misconstrued the evidence before it and based its decision on erroneous findings of fact made in a perverse or capricious manner.

     When the Board's finding relates to the credibility of a witness, the Court will be reluctant to interfere with that finding, given the tribunal's opportunity and ability to assess the witness and his demeanour in oral testimony before it. The Refugee Division is clearly entitled to make an adverse finding of credibility based on the implausibility of an applicant's story, provided the inferences drawn can be reasonably said to exist. Negative findings with respect to a person's credibility are properly made, provided the tribunal gives reasons for its decision in clear and unequivocal terms. That was done here. Indeed, the reasons cite a number of implausibilities in the applicant's evidence concerning integral aspects of his refugee claim.

     After having carefully examined the reasons of the Refugee Division in the present case, I am satisfied it considered and weighed all of the evidence adduced by the applicant, and determined for the reasons given, that the applicant does not have a well-founded fear of persecution. I am unable to conclude that the panel ignored the evidence before it or that its findings were perverse or capricious. In the absence of such an overriding error, there is simply no basis for judicial interference with the decision.

     For these reasons, on December 4, 1996, I dismissed the application.

O T T A W A

April 22, 1997                      "James A. Jerome"

                             A.C.J.