2015-02-04 | 2015 CF 142 | T-338-14
Miji c Canada (Citoyenneté et Immigration)
Principle Established
If a citizenship applicant satisfies s. 5(1) of the Citizenship Act under a qualitative analysis, it is a violation of procedural fairness to reject his application based on a failure to satisfy s. 5(1) under a quantitative analysis.
Facts
Miji sought judicial review of a citizenship judge’s decision to reject his application for Canadian citizenship.
Miji’s application was rejected because he had failed to prove that he had resided in Canada for the requisite number of days as per s. 5(1) of the Citizenship Act
The Federal Court argued that there are three methods by which a citizenship judge can determine whether an applicant has satisfied the requirements of s. 5(1). The first is quantitative and involves calculating exactly how many days an applicant has spent in Canada. The second and third methods are qualitative and involve an analysis of whether the applicant has centralized his ordinary mode of living in Canada and whether the applicant lives regularly and habitually in Canada.
Decision
While the citizenship judge rejected Miji’s application under the quantitative method, the court found that Miji’s application would have succeeded had the judge used either of the two qualitative methods of analysis. The court thus found the rejection of Miji’s application to have violated the principles of procedural fairness.
The request for judicial review was allowed
