![\"Judge](\"https:\/\/immigration.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/VancouverFlag-300x200.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA Canadian immigration panel\u2019s ruling that unborn children have no best interests has been dismissed by a federal judge.<\/p>\n
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Instead the best interests of an unborn child should be considered in exactly the same way as a child post-birth when immigration decisions are made, according to Judge Michel Shore\u2019s April 21 ruling.<\/p>\n
The issue was raised in a case concerning a Chinese man and his Canadian wife, who was five months pregnant when the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD) upheld a 2012 deportation order on appeal, in June 2014.<\/p>\n
Judge Shore quashed the ruling and ordered the case reopened, saying an error was made when Fangyun Li\u2019s appeal against his deportation on humanitarian grounds was rejected.<\/p>\n
The IAD\u2019s report said that until the baby was born there were no best interests to consider.<\/p>\n
But Judge Shore found unborn and born children should be treated without distinction when it comes to assessing the child\u2019s best interests.<\/p>\n
Now legal experts are suggesting the ruling could be used outside immigration cases when establishing the rights of an unborn child.<\/p>\n
Current Canadian law does not recognize a child as a person until the birth has taken place.<\/p>\n
Li first came to Canada aged 18 on a student visa in 2002 and engaged in a sham marriage to a Canadian citizen to gain permanent residency, according to the case notes.<\/p>\n
It was five years until he was eventually granted that status in 2007, before he divorced in 2008.<\/p>\n
In 2012 he genuinely married current wife Ka Kei Tang, also a Canadian. In the same year immigration officers caught up with him and began deportation proceedings related to his first marriage.<\/p>\n
But the time the appeal hearing came around, in 2014, Li\u2019s wife was pregnant, but the IAD did not take into account the best interests of the unborn child.<\/p>\n
Judge Shore says those best interests should have been considered, so now the case will be revisited.<\/p>\n
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