Federal Court orders re-evaluation of Iraqi family's refugee applications due to flawed assessment

The Federal Court has ordered the re-evaluation of an Iraqi family's refugee applications after finding that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada's (IRCC) credibility assessment was flawed.

The applicants, an Iraqi family currently living in Lebanon, sought refuge in Canada. The principal applicant's husband was murdered in Iraq in May 2017, prompting the family to flee after receiving multiple threats. They registered as refugees with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and applied for permanent residence in Canada in September 2019.

IRCC’s refusal letters cited inconsistent statements during an interview in Beirut as the basis for rejecting the applications. The officer doubted the applicants' credibility, particularly their claim that they were threatened due to the husband’s and brother’s work for an unnamed foreign company. The officer found it implausible that the applicants could not identify the company or its origin, which led to the conclusion that they did not have a well-founded fear of persecution.

The Federal Court found that the officer’s credibility assessment was flawed. The officer’s implausibility analysis—questioning why the applicants could not identify the foreign company—did not align with the established legal principles. The court noted that implausibility findings should be made only in the clearest cases where the facts are beyond reasonable expectation.

The court referenced similar cases where the Federal Court held that an applicant’s inability to identify an employer did not necessarily undermine credibility. The applicants emphasized that the husband's employment details were unknown to the principal applicant and her brother, a teenager at the time. The court found this explanation reasonable, especially given the country conditions described in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade report, which indicated that Iraqis working with international entities often concealed such employment.

The Federal Court ruled the decisions unreasonable and allowed the application for judicial review. The case will be returned to a different decision-maker for re-evaluation. The court did not consider the applicants’ other arguments, as the implausibility analysis was sufficient to overturn the original decisions.