The Canadian Federal Court has issued a notable ruling to the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) regarding a 15-month delayed study permit application. In this exceptional case, an applicant made a study permit application on July 13, 2022, to attend the University of Toronto for a PhD in mechanical and industrial engineering.
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Unfortunately, the study permit application was delayed due to background checks, resulting in numerous deferrals of the program’s starting date. The applicant was subject to substantial emotional and psychological distress. Moreover, the applicant’s husband, who is also a student, arrived in Canada following a separation lasting over nine months.
Interestingly, the response from IRCC was that they required additional processing time for the standard background checks of the application.
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A writ of mandamus was granted by the court. This is a last-resort legal remedy used in situations of excessive and unjustified delays in application processing.
Ultimately, the court found that nine months was excessive and seven times longer than the average processing time. Furthermore, the court also found that the justification from the IRCC was unsatisfactory in this circumstance. Consequently, the court decided that the delay was unreasonable and mandated that IRCC finish processing the study permit application in 30 days.
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