Toronto, Ontario, May 30, 2006
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Campbell
BETWEEN:
RENE ANTONIO CLAURE ARCE,
GLORIA ELENA MONTECINOS de CLAURE,
VANESSA GLORIA CLAURE MONTECINOS, and
DANIEL RENE CLAURE MONTECINOS
Applicants
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER AND ORDER
[1] The Applicants claim persecution as members of a particular social group, that is, victims of the network of drug dealers who they believe include members of the local police in Bolivia.
[2] As credibility was not in issue in the decision presently under review, and as the circumstantial evidence before the Refugee Protection Division ("RPD") substantiates the Applicants' belief that the violence they have suffered is at the hands of the police as agents of the state, and as I found in the course of the oral hearing that, in failing to apply the evidence, the RPD mischaracterized the violence suffered by the Applicants as "merely criminal violence", I find that this fundamental error in fact renders the decision under review as patently unreasonable.
ORDER
Accordingly, I set aside the RPD's decision and refer the matter back for redetermination before a differently constituted panel, but with the following direction: on the redetermination the panel accept, as true, the Applicants' evidence with respect to the violence perpetrated upon them as it appears in the Tribunal Record of the decision presently under review.
FEDERAL COURT
NAMES OF COUNSEL AND SOLICITORS OF RECORD
DOCKET: IMM-2174-05
STYLE OF CAUSE: RENE ANTONIO CLAURE ARCE ET. AL. v. THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP & IMMIGRATION
PLACE OF HEARING: Toronto, Ontario
REASONS FOR ORDER
APPEARANCES:
Ellen Woolaver FOR THE APPLICANTS
Margherita Braccio FOR THE RESPONDENT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
Ellen Woolaver
Barrister & Solicitor
Toronto, Ontario FOR THE APPLICANTS
John H. Sims, Q.C.
Deputy Attorney General of Canada FOR THE RESPONDENT