Docket: IMM-11608-24
Citation: 2025 FC 1345
Ottawa, Ontario, July 31, 2025
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Gleeson
|
BETWEEN: |
|
THANH XUAN HA |
|
Applicant |
|
and |
|
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION |
|
Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
[1] The Applicant, a citizen of Vietnam, brings an application for judicial review of a Senior Immigration Officer’s [Officer] September 16, 2022 decision denying the Applicant’s Pre-Removal Risk Assessment [PRRA]. The Applicant does not challenge the Officer’s findings as they relate to her reported risk of religious persecution in Vietnam. Instead, she argues the Officer erred by failing to consider evidence and allegations of a risk posed by her former husband in Vietnam. In this regard, the Applicant’s September 3, 2024, Affidavit states as follows:
6. On September 4. 2021, I married [Canadian Spouse] I posted many of our photographs on social media. Attached and marked as Exhibit ‘B’ to this my affidavit [sic] are some of the pictures I posted.
7. In my PRRA Application, supplementary, I stated that I started receiving threats to my life from my former husband because of these photographs. I provided evidence, the witness statements. Attached hereto and marked as Exhibit ‘C’ are the statements I provided.
[2] The Respondent does not dispute that the PRRA Officer’s decision fails to address the alleged risk posed by the Applicant’s former husband in Vietnam. Instead, the Respondent notes the Certified Tribunal Record [CTR] does not contain any evidence relating to this alleged risk and argues the Applicant has failed to demonstrate this evidence was put before the Officer. The Respondent submits the Officer cannot be faulted on judicial review for failing to consider evidence not before them. I agree.
[3] The Applicant relies solely on the assertion in her September 2024 Affidavit to establish that the evidence of risk posed by her former husband and detailed at Exhibits ‘B’ and ‘C’ was before the Officer. She has neither provided any correspondence that would have accompanied that evidence nor indicated whether this information was submitted by the Applicant directly or through her authorized Representative in the PRRA proceeding. Nor has she provided any explanation for the absence of evidence from her Representative establishing the evidence in issue was submitted. In short, she provides no explanation of the circumstances surrounding the alleged submission of evidence relating to the new risk.
[4] The CTR demonstrates that two sets of submissions were provided by the Applicant’s authorized Representative, the first dated January 6, 2022, and the second dated August 22, 2022. In both cases, the submissions are set out in correspondence on the Representative’s letterhead and signed by the Repsentative.
[5] The August 22, 2022, submissions post date the circumstances reported in the Applicant’s September 2024 Affidavit yet those submissions, as were the original submissions, are limited to the alleged risks arising from the Applicant’s religious beliefs. To be clear, neither set of PRRA submissions mention any risk from the Applicant’s former husband in Vietnam nor has the Applicant provided any explanation for why this is so.
[6] While I acknowledge the Applicant’s Basis of Claim form [BOC] alleges her former husband in Vietnam was violent and that this circumstance contributed to their divorce in 2012, no allegation was made of ongoing risk from her former husband following the divorce in either her BOC or the material contained in the CTR.
[7] In the circumstances, I am not persuaded that the Officer unreasonably failed to consider evidence or that the Applicant has demonstrated a breach of fairness because the Officer did not address evidence of a risk submitted by the Applicant in support of the PRRA.
[8] In this Application for judicial review, the Applicant was unrepresented until just prior to the hearing of the Application on July 24, 2025. A Notice of Appointment of Solicitor was filed on July 21, 2025.
[9] At the outset of the hearing counsel for the Applicant raised two new issues:
-
The Respondent’s Further Memorandum of Argument was not properly before the Court because it had not been served and filed in accordance with the time prescribed in the Order granting leave; and
-
The Respondent’s failure to file a Memorandum of Argument at the leave stage unfairly deprived the Applicant of the opportunity to reply to the Respondent’s submissions.
[10] I find no merit to the first issue. The Order granting leave states at paragraph 10 that “[t]he
respondent's
further memorandum of argument, if any […] shall be served and filed on or before
Friday, July 4, 2025
.”
The Respondent’s Solicitor’s Certificate of Service discloses that the Respondent’s Further Memorandum of Argument was served at 4:54 pm on July 4, 2025, and accepted for filing on that date. The Further Memorandum was served and filed in accordance with the timeline set out in the leave order and Rule 143 of the Federal Courts Rules, SOR/98-106 [Rules].
[11] With respect to the Applicant’s inability to make reply submissions, the Applicant has been aware of the contents of the leave granted Order, including the timing and sequence for the service and filing of further memorandums of argument, since early May 2025 when the Order issued. The Applicant took no steps in advance of the hearing of the Application to raise any concern or potential prejudice arising from the Order or the Respondent’s choice not to serve and file a memorandum at the leave stage of the proceeding.
[12] I am sympathetic to the fact that the Applicant was unrepresented at the leave stage, and I recognize that she has only recently retained counsel. However, it is well established in the jurisprudence of this Court that such considerations do not give a litigant any additional rights or special dispensation (Brunet v Canada (Revenue Agency), 2011 FC 551 at para 10; Nowoselsky v Canada (Treasury Board), 2004 FCA 418 at para 8). The Applicant has not indicated what prevented her from raising a concern with the order of submissions prior to the date of the hearing, she has provided no explanation as to why counsel was engaged at such a late stage of the proceeding, nor is there any evidence or submissions indicating how a reply submission might meaningfully advance the Applicant’s position.
[13] Again, having considered all of the circumstances, I cannot conclude any unfairness arises in this case.
[14] For the reasons set out above, the Application for judicial review is dismissed. The parties do not propose a question for certification, and I agree that none arises.
Email this Content