Asong Alem v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration)

MM-2312-09 2010 FC 148 February 11, 2010 Principle Established: Visa Office must motivate their reasons for refusing TRV The Applicant is a 60 year old citizen of Cameroon who applied for a Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) to visit her daughter in Canada. Her application was denied twice. The rejection letter from the Visa Office listed a series of reasons for the refusal, but without any further explanation. The issue was to determine whether the Visa Office had a duty to fully explain the reasons motivating their refusal. The Court opined that the duty to give reasons for rejecting an application for a TRV is limited, but the person whose application is rejected should still not have to apply for judicial review to obtain an explanation from the Visa Office. The application for judicial review was allowed