Pakistani cop ordered deported from Canada for contributing to 'crimes against humanity’ wins another shot at refugee status
A Federal Court judge has given a former head constable with Pakistan’s Punjab Police Service (PPS), who was ordered deported from Canada for making ‘a voluntary, significant and knowing contribution to the crimes against humanity’ committed by the notorious force, another chance to stay in Canada.
Munir Ahmad Malhi and his wife arrived in Canada in January 2020 and soon sought refugee protection.
Malhi, a citizen of Pakistan, had worked for the PPS for 37 years, from 1979 until his retirement in 2016.
Canada’s Refugee Protection Division (RPD) found Malhi and his wife “to be convention refugees and, that as adherents to the Ahmadiyya faith, they faced a serious risk of persecution in Pakistan.”
Canada’s immigration minister at the time appealed that decision, arguing Malhi “is excluded from refugee protection because he served with the PPS which has committed crimes against humanity.”
The Refugee Appeal Division allowed the appeal, and the matter was referred back to the RPD.
In April 2022, a Canada Border Services Agency officer interviewed Malhi “due to concerns regarding his inadmissibility to Canada.”
Malhi’s case was then referred to Canada’s Immigration Division (ID) for an admissibility hearing, and his refugee claim was suspended.
After a five-day hearing in 2024, the ID found “that the PPS has committed crimes against humanity and that (Malhi) was complicit in those crimes.”
Malhi “did not dispute the minister’s generalized evidence about the PPS and acknowledged that the PPS’s propensity for violence is common knowledge in Pakistan. The ID relied on extensive objective evidence filed by the minister to find that the PPS engaged in systemic human rights abuses, including torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. It concluded that these offences constitute crimes against humanity.”
The immigration minister at the time didn’t allege Malhi “was personally involved in committing crimes against humanity. Rather, the issue before the ID was whether (he) contributed to the PPS’s crimes against humanity in a manner that made him complicit in those crimes.”
The ID found that Malhi “attempted to portray himself as a low-level mail carrier with minimal involvement in policing activities,” noting “that this account was inconsistent with written statements” in his service records.
The ID focused on Malhi’s “long tenure with the PPS, his promotion from constable to head constable, and the receipt of service awards throughout his career and concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe that he knowingly, voluntarily, and significantly contributed to the PPS’s abuses.”
In August 2024, it found Malhi inadmissible to Canada and ordered his deportation.
Malhi applied to Canada’s Federal Court for a review of that decision.
Malhi “contends that he was not involved in any crimes against humanity, nor did he endorse or contribute to them. He says he was aware of the crimes against humanity and the use of torture by the PPS, but did not leave the force because he had to earn a living to support his family. He contends that his role in the PPS was restricted and, as an Ahmadiyya Muslim, his authority and influence was limited. He says he did not conduct interrogations, and his duties consisted mainly of mail delivery.”
Under its assessment of the PPS’s crimes against humanity, the ID noted “the PPS is not an organization of limited brutal purpose. It is a state-wide police force responsible for maintaining public order.”
But its reasons for ordering Malhi’s deportation “do not demonstrate that the heterogeneous nature of the PPS was factored into the ID’s analysis” of Malhi’s complicity, Justice Meaghan M. Conroy wrote in a recent decision out of Toronto.
“As explained by the Supreme Court, the nature of the organization helps determine the likelihood that the person would have known and participated in crimes or the criminal purpose.”
Where the organization “performs both legitimate and criminal acts,” such as the PPS, “the link between the contribution and the criminal purpose will be more tenuous,” said the judge.
Canada’s Immigration Division “also failed to consider (Malhi’s) rank,” Conroy said.
“According to the objective evidence filed by the minister, constable (the rank held by Malhi for most of his tenure), is the lowest rank in the PPS. This omission is a serious error.”
According to the judge, unless “an individual has control or responsibility over the individuals committing international crimes, he or she cannot be complicit by simply remaining in his or her position without protest.”
The decision to deport Malhi was “silent on his rank, or relative position in the hierarchy of the PPS, and how his rank relates to his alleged complicity in the PPS’s crimes against humanity,” Conroy said in her decision dated Jan. 6.
The judge concluded that the “decision lacks the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility — and is therefore set aside.”
She granted Malhi’s application for judicial review and sent his case “back for redetermination by a different decision-maker.”
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