Federal Court Decisions

     IMM-2549-96

BETWEEN:

     KANAMOORTHY SATHASIVAM

     Applicant

AND:

     THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

     Respondent

     REASONS FOR ORDER

JOYAL, J.:

     At the conclusion of the hearing of this application for judicial review of a Refugee Board decision declaring that the Applicant is not an Convention refugee, I informed the parties that I was disposed to quash the Board's decision and order a new hearing.

     In simple terms, the issues concerned the reasons given by the Board in concluding that some of the facts pertinent to the claim for refugee status and recited by the Applicant were not credible, and that there were no objective grounds to support the Applicant's fear of persecution in the area of internal flight alternative.

     It is a given that a decision based on lack of credibility is often open to a number of more or less imaginative attacks. One thing is certain, and that is that a Board who harbours a doubt as to a claimant's credibility is obliged to so advise the claimant; not to do so constitutes a denial of natural justice. Of particular concern herein is that midway through the proceedings, the Board was heard to say that it was satisfied with the claimant's story, and that no further evidence would be required. Later on, however, the Board stated it was not satisfied with some of the evidence, where some corrobation would have been available to the claimant.

     This is where inadvertently, I am sure, some ambiguity crept into the Board's reasons for decision. It is not clear whether the Board was looking at the truthfulness of the evidence, or whether, on that evidence, the claimant had failed to satisfy the Board that his fear of persecution was well-founded.

     After hearing counsel for the parties, I concluded that the claimant should be given the benefit of the doubt and I declared that he was entitled to a new hearing before a differently-constituted Board.

     An Order will go accordingly.

     L-Marcel Joyal

     _________________________

     J U D G E

O T T A W A, Ontario

May 23, 1997.