Date: 20010501
Docket: IMM-2838-00
Neutral Citation: 2001 FCT 420
BETWEEN:
ONOEYANAIGERE EVANS ALAWURU
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF
CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
[1] The Applicant seeks judicial review of the May 3, 2000 decision of the Convention Refugee Determination Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the "Board") in which the Board held that the Applicant did not meet the criteria to be determined to be a Convention refugee.
[2] The Respondent admits the Board erred in its findings on the issue of nexus with respect to the father's threats based on the Applicant's religious conversion. However, the Respondent submits that the Board found an Internal Flight Alternative ("IFA") based on the following reasoning, found at page 6 of the Board's decision:
The claimant testified that, while family members remaining in Warri have been harassed because of his role in the demonstration, because his mother lives in Port Harcourt, she has not. It was in Port Harcourt that the claimant found refuge from the risks he feared would arise from his role in the demonstration. I am not satisfied that Port Harcourt, where he has both his mother and friends, could not offer him safety again.
Later on that same page, the Board stated:
As noted earlier, I am not satisfied that recourse to state protection is unavailable to him. Moreover, according to the claimant, his father long ago threatened his mother's life because of her adherence to the Jehovah's Witness faith, but her residence in Port Harcourt has afforded her a safe buffer from that threat.
[3] The Board did not use the term "Internal Flight Alternative" or "IFA" at any place in the transcript. I note that in the above statements, the Board used the words "refuge" and "buffer", but it did not actually use the term "IFA". The Board stated at the hearing that the issues were credibility, personal identity, documents regarding nationality, subjective and objective basis of fear and delay.
[4] As Linden J. stated in Thirunavukkarasu v. M.E.I. (1993), 109 D.L.R. (4th) 682 at 686:
.... there is an onus on the Minister and the board to warn the claimant if an IFA is going to be raised. A refugee claimant enjoys the benefit of the principles of natural justice in hearings before the Refugee Division. A basic and well-established component of the right to be heard includes notice of the case to be met:
[5] The Court went on to say, once an IFA is raised the Applicant must demonstrate on a balance of probability that there is a serious possibility of persecution in the area alleged to constitute an IFA.
[6] In this case, the Applicant received no warning from either the Minister or the Board that an IFA was going to be raised.
[7] The application for judicial review is granted. The Board's decision dated May 3, 2000 is quashed. The matter is returned to a differently constituted Board for rehearing and redetermination.
"W.P. McKeown"
Ottawa, Ontario
FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA
Names of Counsel and Solicitors of Record
COURT NO: IMM-2838-00
STYLE OF CAUSE: ONOEYANAIGERE EVANS ALAWURU
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
DATE OF HEARING: TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2001
PLACE OF HEARING: TORONTO, ONTARIO
REASONS FOR ORDER BY: McKEOWN J.
DATED: TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2001
APPEARANCES BY: Mr. Kingsley I. Jesuorobo
For the Applicant
Mr. John Loncar
For the Respondent
SOLICITORS OF RECORD: KINGSLEY I. JESUOROBO
Barrister & Solicitor
968 Wilson Avenue, 3rd Floor
North York, Ontario
M3K 1E7
For the Applicant
Morris Rosenberg
Deputy Attorney General of Canada
For the Respondent
FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA
Date: 20010501
Docket: IMM-2838-00
BETWEEN:
ONOEYANAIGERE EVANS ALAWURU
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER