CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
Status in Canada |
Convention Refugees |
Wajid v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)
IMM-1706-99
Pelletier J.
25/5/00
6 pp.
Judicial review of CRDD decision applicant excluded from Convention refugee status under Convention, Art. 1F because serious reasons to consider committed crime against peace, war crime or crime against humanity (international crimes)--Applicant General Secretary in his village of TNSM (organization seeking imposition of traditional Islamic law in NorthWest Frontier in Pakistan)--TNSM engaged in armed opposition to state in course of which hostages taken, civilians killed--CRDD finding violence inherent to goals of TNSM; actions occurring in course of TNSM's campaign international crimes; applicant must have known people within organization armed, and that aims justified all means including violent uprising--Application allowed--(1) Onus of establishing person excluded on person asserting exclusion--Incumbent on CRDD to identify crime and to show what made it international crime instead of merely domestic crime--Not shown by whom civilians killed--CRDD must identify which acts "international" crimes and show serious reasons for believing applicant committed those crimes--(2) As General Secretary, applicant could fall within class of persons so implicated in work of organization that taken to have knowledge of all activities of organization--Assertion "aims justified all means including armed uprising" may have been intended to suggest TNSM organization with single brutal purpose so that membership carrying with it complicity for crimes of organization--But no showing international crime committed or that objectives of TNSM limited to single brutal purpose--In absence of actual complicity in international crimes, no basis for finding applicant excluded by Convention, Art. 1F--United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, July 28, 1951, [1969] Can. T.S. No. 6, Art. 1F.