Refugee credibility was central to the Federal Court’s dismissal of a judicial review application by a Sri Lankan family whose refugee-protection claim had been refused by the Refugee Protection Division and upheld by the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD).
Federal Court dismisses judicial review
In Sumudu Udayakantha Abeysundara v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 1034, Mr. Justice Joyal dismissed the application for judicial review on September 2, 2026, in Montréal, Québec.
The applicants—a principal applicant, his wife and their minor son—arrived in Canada on visitor visas on December 15, 2022, and claimed refugee protection. They alleged a fear of harm in Sri Lanka from an influential government Minister and complicit police authorities.
The Refugee Protection Division (RPD) rejected the claims on September 24, 2024, finding that the applicants were not credible witnesses. On March 6, 2025, the RAD dismissed their appeal, confirmed the RPD decision and found that the alleged events had not occurred as claimed.
Court applied the reasonableness standard
The Court reviewed the RAD decision on the reasonableness standard. Justice Joyal stated that this standard applied to the RAD’s credibility conclusions, its treatment of proposed new evidence and its assessment of the applicants’ allegation that their former counsel had been ineffective.
The Court considered whether the RAD’s reasons showed an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis and were justified in light of the facts and law. It found no reviewable error in the RAD’s decision.
Former counsel was not shown to be incompetent
Before the RAD, the applicants argued that their former counsel had failed to advise them to submit corroborating documents. They maintained that they could have produced supporting material and that its absence had contributed to the RPD’s adverse credibility findings.
The Court found it was reasonably open to the RAD to reject this allegation. The applicants had been told through the Basis of Claim form that they were responsible for obtaining and providing documents supporting their claim. They had also submitted some documents before the RPD hearing and provided further materials after the RPD specifically requested documents concerning the property sale and the alleged agent of persecution.
Justice Joyal emphasized that the claim had been rejected because of vague, inconsistent and implausible testimony on central matters, rather than because corroborating evidence was absent. Since testimony is generally presumed truthful unless there is a valid reason to doubt it, the Court found former counsel was not required to pre-emptively corroborate every aspect of the narrative in anticipation of credibility concerns.
The Court also found no prejudice from the alleged deficiency. Although the RAD admitted nine documents on appeal, it independently concluded that significant credibility flaws in the principal applicant’s testimony still caused the claim to fail.
RAD reasonably assessed proposed new evidence
The applicants also challenged the RAD’s decision to refuse 14 proposed documents. The Court held that the RAD did not refuse the material solely because the applicants had not established counsel incompetence.
Under subsection 110(4) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, an appellant must show that evidence arose after the RPD decision, was not reasonably available when the RPD decided the claim, or could not reasonably have been expected to have been presented to the RPD.
The RAD found that the refused documents related to events that predated the RPD decision and that the applicants had not shown why they could not reasonably have presented them at the initial hearing. The Court found that conclusion reasonable.
The Court distinguished the nine documents the RAD admitted. One postdated the RPD decision. For the other eight, the RAD had identified RPD errors and accepted that the applicants could not have been expected to provide documents on issues they could not have anticipated would be decided against them.
Inconsistencies supported the credibility findings
Justice Joyal found that the RAD reasonably relied on inconsistencies and omissions involving central events in the refugee claim. These included differing accounts of when a police officer allegedly demanded a bribe and whether the principal applicant was slapped during an alleged May 1, 2022, police-station incident.
The Court also upheld the RAD’s finding that the alleged June 5, 2022, abduction had not occurred as claimed. The principal applicant’s accounts evolved between his Basis of Claim narrative and his RPD testimony. The Court noted that allegations involving a gun being placed against his head or in his mouth, gunshots near his head and an apparent killing were not included in the narrative.
The applicants argued that trauma explained the discrepancies, but the Court found that the RAD reasonably rejected that explanation for materially changing accounts and the omission of events of that severity.
The Court further held that the RAD was not required to expressly discuss the wife’s evidence. Her testimony could not resolve contradictions in the principal applicant’s accounts of the alleged abduction because she did not witness that event.
Practical significance
This decision turns on the particular record before the RAD and does not establish a general rule for all refugee claims. It illustrates that, in this case, the Court accepted the RAD’s assessment where omissions and inconsistencies concerned events at the core of the claim.
It also confirms, on the facts of this case, that an allegation of ineffective assistance must meet a high threshold and cannot be assessed with hindsight. The Court accepted the RAD’s conclusion that an appeal is not an opportunity to complete a record with evidence that could reasonably have been presented to the RPD.
Source: Federal Court Decisions