Date: 19980707
Docket: IMM-5015-97
BETWEEN:
BUYE KABULO
HADJIDJA BAHATI
BAHATI KABULO
Applicants
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
(Delivered from the Bench at Toronto, Ontario
on Tuesday, July 7, 1998)
DÉCARY J.
[1] The applicants were determined not to be Convention Refugees by the Immigration and Refugee Board, Refugee Division ("the Board").
[2] The decision of the Board is essentially based on the lack of credibility of the principal applicant. The Board, in my view, has adequately explained why it preferred to rely on documentary evidence rather than on the testimony of that applicant.
[3] Counsel has submitted that it was improper for the Board to take the view that if one of the applicants was related to a colonel in the Mobutu government, then it was unlikely that he would have been allowed to participate in political activities together with other persons opposed to the government. The Board, according to counsel, was stereotyping or generalizing in taking that view, thereby giving rise to an apprehension of bias and violating the principles underlying sections 2, 7 and 15 of the Charter.
[4] The inference was reasonably open to the Board in the circumstances. To base an inference on a family relationship in a given case does not the least suggest that one is stereotyped. Furthermore, as the applicants are claiming a well-founded fear of persecution based in part on their membership in a particular social group, that being their family and the colonel (the step-father), it is contradictory to argue that the Board is infringing these sections of the Charter by using that association against them.
[5] My only cause for concern is the fact that the Board appears to have disregarded without reason the testimony of the principal applicant's wife, who had testified that her husband had been arrested. One would have expected the Board to explain why it disregarded her evidence or why it did not believe her. In context, however, the wife's testimony was so short and so unsubstantiated that the Board's failure to explain why it did not come back to that evidence later on in its reasons is of no consequence. That testimony, clearly, stood or fell depending on whether the husband's testimony was to be believed or not.
[6] Counsel for the applicants has suggested that I certify a question pertaining to credibility findings based purely on the relationship of a claimant to another person. As the credibility findings, here, are not based purely on such a relationship and as there is a total absence of evidence with respect to any apprehension of bias, the certification of the proposed question could serve no useful purpose.
[7] The application for judicial review will be dismissed.
"Robert Décary"
Judge
Toronto, Ontario
July 7, 1998
FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA
Names of Counsel and Solicitors of Record
COURT NO: IMM-5015-97
| STYLE OF CAUSE: BUYE KABULO ET AL. |
- and -
| THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
DATE OF HEARING: JULY 7, 1998
PLACE OF HEARING: TORONTO, ONTARIO
REASONS FOR ORDER BY: DÉCARY, J.
DATED: JULY 7, 1998
APPEARANCES:
Mr. Micheal Crane
For the Applicant
Ms. Susan Nucci
For the Respondent
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
Micheal Crane
166 Pearl Street
Suite 200
Toronto, Ontario
M5H 1L3
For the Applicant
George Thomson
Deputy Attorney General
of Canada
For the Respondent
FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA
Date: 19980707
Docket: IMM-5015-97
Between:
| BUYE KABULO |
HADJIDJA BAHATI
BAHATI KABULO
Applicants
- and -
| THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER