Canada Immigration Case law Canada, Sisman, IMMIGRATION — Refugee status — Procedure
Judgement for this Case: Click here!
IMMIGRATION — Refugee status — Procedure — Appeal of decision of Refugee Protection Division (RPD) by Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) — Standard of review — Refugee claimant was citizen of Turkey claimed to fear that he would be persecuted in that country for being Armenian Orthodox Christian — Claimant was seafarer who left Turkey on job in July 2013, abandoned his employment once his ship arrived in United States and after spending some time there entered Canada illegally and made refugee claim — RPD found claimant lacked credibility and determined that he was neither Convention refugee nor person in need of protection — Claimant appealed decision to RAD which dismissed appeal — Claimant applied for judicial review, contending that RAD was wrong to apply reasonableness standard when reviewing RPD’s factual findings, and that it was at least required to independently reassess evidence — Application allowed — It was neither justifiable nor reasonable for RAD not to make its own assessment of case in clear terms — It articulated and adopted reasonableness standard and focused unduly upon RPD’s reasons in its analysis — RAD did not make its own independent analysis of claim but simply reviewed RPD’s determinations and judged them reasonable — Throughout its decision, RAD used judicial review language and stated that “ RPD found”, “RPD gave little weight”, “ panel concluded”, “ RPD wrote”, “ RPD reasonably noted”, “ RPD concluded”, “ RPD considered”, “it was reasonable for RPD to make” — In light of RAD’s unequivocal assertions of deference to RPD it would be unsafe to assume that it fully carried out kind of independent review of evidence that was required — RAD’s decision could not be justified as acceptable outcome defensible in respect of facts and law — Matter must be returned to RAD for redetermination by another panel member — Claimant was entitled to appeal before RAD, not just recitation of facts found by RPD
