The Maryam Monsef scandal gets more serious with each passing day.

Monsef’s office declined an interview with the Toronto Sun, but for each day she remains silent, the case against her continues to mount.

The latest call for a full investigation into Monsef’s case is from Lloyd Fournier, a retired adjudicator from the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).

The former senior IRB judge specialized in refugee claims from the Middle East, including both Afghanistan and Iran. He presided over thousands of cases during his career.

There is “something very odd in the Maryam Monsef story,” Fournier wrote in his personal blog.

I spoke to Fournier about the Monsef file, and about refugee applications in general from Iran and Afghanistan during the mid-1990s – when the Monsef family came to Canada.

A person’s country of origin, that is, where a person was born “makes a huge difference” on a refugee application, said Fournier.

Cases are determined based on the likelihood of persecution in a specific country, and the ability of that country to provide protection. Where a person was born is a central point of reference for an IRB judge.

According to Fournier, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act establishes claims based on a “well-founded fear of persecution.”

Each refugee application is considered on a case by case basis, but, he noted, it would have helped the Monsef family’s case to claim they were from Afghanistan rather than Iran.

“The facts are that at the time the Monsef family claim was made at the IRB, a higher percentage of Afghan claims were successful than claims from Iran,” said Fournier.

So while some Liberals try to spin that Monsef being born a mere 373 kilometers away is “no big deal” – the law says otherwise. “Lying in order to get one’s way in court,” Fournier said, is a very “big deal.”

“It diminishes credibility in her refugee claim,” said Fournier.

He also notes that the law in question is not a Harper era law, as many mistakenly claim.

“Section 109 (dealing with forfeiture of citizenship when fraud is revealed) was a component of the original Immigration Act, on the books since the early 1950s,” he said.

The retired IRB judge is publicly speaking out about this case.

And Fournier is no partisan Conservative with an axe to grind. Quite the opposite. The Liberal-appointed judge was once described by the Walrus Magazine as an “admirer of Pierre Trudeau” and a “decidedly Liberal red in a sea of Conservative blue.” He was also the president of three Liberal riding associations.

Fournier is calling for full disclosure from Monsef, and urging her to release her “entire Personal Information Form, the various support documents, the formal decision and the reasons as provided by the IRB.”

These documents, according to Fournier, would help determine the accuracy of Monsef’s claim. “On the other hand, it might indicate that fraud has taken place,” said Fournier.

“We now have cause to suspect the veracity of the entire refugee application,” said Fournier.

“It’s time that truth on her file comes from a fulsome file review and not piece meal talking points being issued by the Prime Minister’s Office.”

“Fraud is fraud,” said Fournier. And to excuse fraud of any kind is “an insult to thousands of other who patiently wait in line for spaces [that are] grabbed by queue jumpers with bogus Refugee claims.”

“It might be time for the Department of Justice to step in.”