CAT/C/65/D/784/2016 Annex Individual opinion of Committee member Abdelwahab Hani (dissenting) [Original: French] 1. The State party observes that “the complainant also failed to apply for a pre-removal risk assessment”. It recalls that “persons in Canada … may apply for such an assessment if they are subject to an enforceable removal order” and that “a person may apply for protection to the Minister within 15 days after notification of the removal decision”. The State party makes application for this remedy conditional upon notification of the removal decision, which, in turn, appears to be conditional upon the State party’s request for the Committee to lift the interim measures taken (para. 4.3) – a request the Committee has denied. 2. Yet, the State party makes no reference to the service of any notification of a decision to remove, pursuant to an enforceable removal order. The complainant merely stated that her removal was “imminent”, without indicating a date for her deportation. The lack of notification makes it impossible for the complainant to apply for protection, thereby rendering this remedy inoperable. 3. The State party further notes that the complainant has been eligible to apply for a pre-removal risk assessment since 30 March 2016, the date on which her application for asylum was rejected, but that she has not exhausted this remedy. 4. The State party fails to point out that the complainant is eligible to apply for a preremoval risk assessment only after a period of 12 months from that date, during which rejected asylum seekers are barred from formulating any appeal. This time frame is excessively long, in view of the complainant’s vulnerability as a rejected asylum seeker who began the asylum process five years previously. 5. Although praiseworthy in its intent, the pre-removal risk assessment nevertheless remains, in practice, a non-independent mechanism for the discretionary review of cases by officers of the Ministry. A rejected asylum seeker can substantiate his or her request for review only on the basis of new evidence. 6. Recourse to the pre-removal risk assessment is conditional upon receipt of notification from the Minister inviting eligible complainants to avail themselves of this option. Yet, the State party makes no reference to any such notification having been served on the complainant and has consequently failed to demonstrate that this remedy was, in fact, available to her. 7. The complainant draws attention to the low completion rate for pre-removal risk assessments. This observation was confirmed by the State party itself during the consideration of its seventh periodic report (CAT/C/CAN/7), when it reported that the rate of acceptance of the applications for pre-removal risk assessment that had been filed within the past five years stood at 5.2 per cent.1 According to official statistics, 2 “the acceptance rate for PRRA has remained quite low”, ranging from 1.4 per cent in 2010 to 3.1 per cent in 2014,3 and representing an average annual rate of only 2 per cent. 8. In such circumstances, the rather low acceptance rate for pre-removal risk assessments has more to do with research into the probability of rare events and their 1 2 3 GE.19-05767 See CAT/C/SR.1695, para. 34; and CAT/C/SR.1698, paras. 32, 33, 42 and 52. Evaluation of the Pre-Removal Risk Assessment Program, see: Finding No. 8 at https://www.canada.ca/fr/immigration-refugies-citoyennete/organisation/rapportsstatistiques/evaluations/programme-examen-risques-avant-renvoi/erar.html. Ibid., Figure 4.6. 9