Officer finding evidence contained insufficient evidence of applicant’s ethnicity

Procedural fairness. Applicant was citizen of Hungary who entered Canada in 2015 and claimed refugee status based on Roma and Jewish ethnicity. Applicant was found inadmissible to Canada for serious criminality. Refugee claim was terminated and deportation order issued. Applicant applied for pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA) claiming risk of harm from right-wing extremist groups and racist Hungarian society because of ethnicity. PRRA officer found applicant was not person in need of protection and rejected application. Applicant claimed officer breached procedural fairness. Applicant brought application for judicial review. Application dismissed. Officer considered all documentation filed in support of PRRA and profile of applicant. Officer found documentary evidence was of poor quality and contained insufficient evidence of applicant’s ethnicity. Officer did not question applicant’s credibility, but rather concluded that evidence provided was insufficient to establish, on balance of probabilities, that applicant was half-Roma and half-Jewish or would be perceived to be so by Hungarian society. There was no breach of procedural fairness.

Zdraviak v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (2017), 2017 CarswellNat 861, 2017 FC 305, Patrick Gleeson J. (F.C.).