Date: 20010307
Docket: IMM-3176-00
Neutral citation: 2001 FCT 142
BETWEEN:
JOZSEF CSONNO
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
LUTFY A.C.J.
[1] The applicant, a Roma citizen of Hungary, seeks judicial review of the decision of the Convention Refugee Determination Division that he is not a Convention refugee.
[2] The tribunal found that the applicant embellished his testimony and that some of the incidents he complained of did not occur as he described them. The tribunal was prepared to accept that serious skinhead attacks did occur in 1992 and 1995 and that his residence had been vandalized. However, the tribunal found the applicant's testimony generally unsatisfactory and did not accept the veracity of alleged racially motivated incidents in 1999.
[3] The applicant challenges the tribunal's negative credibility finding and its conclusion that the acts complained of constitute discrimination and not persecution.
[4] Concerning credibility, I do not accept the submissions of counsel for the applicant that the tribunal erred in its understanding of the oral testimony. In my opinion, the tribunal's reasons for not believing the applicant were explained in clear and unmistakable terms. After a careful review of the transcript, I am satisfied that the decision under review discloses no reviewable error concerning the tribunal's appreciation of the applicant's evidence.
[5] Similarly, I am satisfied the applicant has not established that the tribunal erred in characterizing the three incidents as discrimination and not persecution.
[6] In Sagharichi v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration) (1993), 182 N.R. 398 (C.A.), the Court of Appeal confirmed that it was for the Refugee Division to draw the sometimes difficult distinction between persecution and discrimination or harassment:
| It is true that the dividing line between persecution and discrimination or harassment is difficult to establish, the more so since, in the refugee law context, it has been found that discrimination may very well be seen as amounting to persecution. It is true also that the identification of persecution behind incidents of discrimination or harassment is not purely a question of fact but a mixed question of law and fact, legal concepts being involved. It remains, however, that, in all cases, it is for the Board to draw the conclusion in a particular factual context by proceeding with a careful analysis of the evidence adduced and a proper balancing of the various elements contained therein, ... |
[7] Again, my examination of the record discloses no error in the tribunal's analysis which would warrant this Court's intervention.
[8] Accordingly, this application for judicial review will be dismissed. Neither party suggested the certification of a serious question.
"Allan Lutfy"
A.C.J.
Ottawa, Ontario
March 7, 2001