Ebi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)

2015-01-06 | 2015 FC 13 | IMM-3613-13

Ebi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)

Principles Established

  1. A settlement between an applicant and CIC does not constitute a court ordered settlement under 87.4(2) of the IRPA.
  2. An immigration decision made by operation of law cannot be contested on grounds of procedural fairness.

Facts

Ebi applied for judicial review of the decision of a visa officer to reject her application for Federal Skilled Worker class [FSW] permanent residency.

Ebi first submitted her FSW application in 2006. In 2009, Ebi’s file was closed without a final decision as she failed to provide certain required documents. The case was later reopened through a settlement offer from the CIC. After several years of delay, processing of the file began again. In August 2013, CIC send Ebi a letter stating that her application had been rejected due to non-compliance with s. 87.4 of the IRPA.

87.4(1) states that any FSW application started before February 27, 2008 is terminated if, before March 29, 2012, a final decision has not been made. 87.4(2) states that an applicant is protected from this rule if he has entered into a settlement made by court order prior to March 29, 2012.

Decision

The Federal Court upheld the officer’s decision for two reasons. Firstly the Court opined that a settlement agreed to between Ebi and CIC did not constitute a court ordered settlement under 87.4(2). Secondly, the court opined that Ebi did not have recourse to procedural fairness-based arguments concerning the delay in her application’s processing time because the application had been terminated by operation of law.  The application for judicial review was dismissed.

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Ijaz v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)

2015-01-16 | 2015 FC 67 | IMM-4516-13

Ijaz v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)

Principle Established

In the context of education received in a foreign country, there is ambiguity in the IRP regulations concerning whether educational qualification points should be awarded based on equivalent years of education or equivalent completed degrees.

Facts

Ijaz applied for judicial review of a CIC officer’s rejection of her application for permanent residency as a Federal Skilled Worker.

Ijaz argued that she was erroneously awarded 5 educational qualification points when she was actually entitled to 19 points. If Ijaz had been awarded 19 points, her application would have succeeded.

Ijaz submitted evidence that she had completed secondary school, a two-year science degree and a two-year accounting degree in Pakistan. Upon evaluation, it was determined that Ijaz’s educational experience constituted the equivalent of a Canadian high school diploma, two years of Canadian undergraduate schooling and two years of Canadian professional schooling.

Ijaz argued that she should have been awarded points for her four years of post-secondary schooling while CIC argued that educational qualification points are only provided for foreign educational experience that constitutes the equivalent of a completed degree in Canada. Thus, given that Ijaz had not been assessed as having completed the equivalent of a Canadian bachelor or professional degree, she only received points for her equivalent high school diploma.

Decision

The Federal Court applied the standard of reasonableness to the case as the matter involved a CIC officer interpreting a statute with which he had substantial experience. The Court then opined that both Ijaz and the CIC’s arguments were reasonable interpretations of the IRP Regulations. The Court thus deferred to the CIC’s rejection of the application and submitted a certified question on the legislative ambiguity.

The application for judicial review was dismissed. The certified question has not yet been answered.

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