Date: 20010924
Docket: IMM-6571-00
Neutral Citation: 2001 FCT 1045
BETWEEN:
MORJINA (aka Marjina)
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
[1] This application is for the judicial review of a decision of the Convention Refugee Determination Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board ("the Board") dated December 4, 2000, holding that the applicant is not a Convention refugee.
Facts
[2] The applicant is a thirty year old woman of Bangladesh who claimed Convention refugee status based on a well-founded fear of persecution by reason of her political opinion and membership in a particular social group.
[3] The applicant's family owned a number of parcels of land in the district of Pabna. She claims that thugs began harassing and intimidating her and her mother. During the 1996 general election, she allegedly canvassed in support of the Bangladesh National Party. After that election, the thugs increased their pressure to acquire the land in question. Towards the end of 1996 the applicant and her mother fled to Dhaka where one of their cousins lived. They both returned to their own village in the middle of 1997 and the thugs came back, forcing the mother to sign over a land deed in their favour. They both escaped to Canada on June 10, 1998. The applicant testified that the family with whom she stayed in Canada treated her as an unpaid servant. A year after, or on June 3, 1999, she claimed to be a Convention refugee.
The Board's Decision
[4] The Board found the applicant not to be a credible witness and her testimony not trustworthy in regard to the essential elements of her claim, based on many omissions, inconsistencies and contradictions arising from her testimony, the information on her Personal Information Form and her Background Information Form. The Board listed eight specific implausible allegations.
[5] The Board also found that the applicant had a viable Internal Flight Alternative ("IFA") in Dhaka. The evidence showed that there is no serious possibility of the applicant being prosecuted in Dhaka where there is a government agency set up specifically to deal with violence against women. She would experience no difficulty in securing employment there and she would have the moral support and protection from one of her cousins resident in that area.
Analysis
[6] Counsel for the applicant alleges that the so-called omissions, inconsistencies and contradictions found by the Board resulted from the Board having created a series of ambushes to trap the applicant who is illiterate. However, she was represented at the hearing before the Board by the same counsel who appeared before me and he is obviously alert and competent.
[7] Counsel also claims that the Board was unfair to the applicant by not providing the translation for all the applicant's documents. Clearly, the onus of translating an applicant's own documents before the Board is the responsibility of the applicant, not of the Board.
[8] Counsel did show that the Board made some minor mistakes relating to dates and places but did not establish that those minor errors substantially affected the Board's global view of the situation. In my view, the minor errors were far from being fatal to the overall assessment.
[9] Moreover, the IFA finding, by itself, is sufficient support for the Board's decision.
[10] At the end of his decision, the Presiding Member recommended that the Minister look at the applicant's case sympathetically. He wrote as follows:
I am sympathetic to the plight of the claimant. She apparently suffered mistreatment for a considerable period of time after her arrival in Canada. Members of the family who were instrumental in securing her admission to Canada, as a care giver, turned against her. She had no one to turn to. The claimant has been in Canada for almost two and one half years. I would recommend that the Minister look at her case sympathetically.
[11] I encouraged counsel for the applicant to pursue the matter along the appropriate route and, of course, he intends to do so.
Disposition
[12] The application for judicial review is dismissed. There is no question of general importance to be certified.
OTTAWA, Ontario
September 24, 2001
Judge