May 21, 2021

This Week’s Success Story: Stalled Citizenship Application Requires Federal Court Intervention – Mandamus

We had been working with a client over the years to assist with a number of immigration matters, when we learned that the processing of his application for a grant of Canadian citizenship had become stalled. Despite meeting the eligibility requirements and having complied with all Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) requests during the processing of the citizenship application, the application was still in progress after nearly three years – almost two years over the estimated processing time of twelve months for such applications.

We prepared a letter to IRCC requesting that they process the pending application for Canadian citizenship to a final decision within forty-five days, otherwise our client would be left with no choice but to seek remedy in the Federal Court of Canada in the form of a writ of mandamus. After receiving no response, we filed an application to the Federal Court.

It was not long before we received an offer to settle, before we filed any arguments at the Federal Court, indicating that our client’s application would be finalized shortly. Our client was then contacted by IRCC to schedule the final events in the processing of his citizenship application. We were pleased to learn that his application was granted and he finally received his Citizenship certificate!