TORONTO — The Federal Court has quashed an immigration officer's refusal to grant permanent resident status to three refugees who applied to live in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
As a result, they will now receive a second chance to present their case.
The trio, whose application was supported by the Thunder Bay Roman Catholic diocese, includes two females and one male from Sudan who have stayed in refugee camps in Uganda since 1994.
According to a transcript of the court decision, one of the females was born in a refugee camp but was separated from her family at the age of 11 after the Lord's Resistance Army attacked the camp.
Family members of the male applicant, already living in Canada, filed an application to sponsor the trio for permanent residency in 2008.
Four years later, in 2012, the immigration officer determined that the applicants met the requirements of the humanitarian-protected persons and refugees abroad class laid out in the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees.
At the time, the officer informed them that any changes to their family composition would need to be reported. However, the male applicant maintained later that he didn't understand that requirement.
The applicants were also ordered to undergo medical exams. One of the females failed to attend because she had given birth and was unfit to travel, but another woman took the medical exam in her place.
In 2016, four years since the initial positive decision, all three were re-interviewed without the assistance of an interpreter.
During the interview, the applicants confirmed that an imposter had been sent to undertake the medical exam. The male refugee also disclosed the existence of two grandchildren whom he had not declared in 2012.
When the three were asked to account for their actions, a relative sent a response by email over the name of the male applicant, asking for forgiveness and explaining that his illiteracy was partly responsible for the errors.
The applicants stated later that they had never given permission to send the email, and had never had a chance to review its contents.
After their applications for permanent residency were ultimately denied by the immigration officer, in May 2018, an appeal was launched.
Last month, at a Federal Court hearing, the officer maintained that the applicants had admitted in 2016 to having sent an imposter to the medical exam, that the male applicant had failed to disclose the existence of his grandchildren in 2012, and that "illiteracy" could not excuse either action.
The applicants disputed the accuracy of the officer's notes about his conversations with them.
The judge, in a ruling issued earlier this month, said procedural unfairness had occurred in the case because the officer's interview notes "are not sufficient to support the Officer's conclusions on the 'imposter' situation."
The judge also determined that the officer had not given the three refugees sufficient opportunity to explain their actions, leaving them with "little option but to provide an excuse and an apology."
As such, he ordered that their residency application be reconsidered by a different immigration officer.
