Docket: IMM-16511-23
Citation: 2024 FC 1847
Toronto, Ontario, November 19, 2024
PRESENT: The Honourable Justice Fuhrer
BETWEEN: |
Dejan STOJILJKOVIC |
Applicant |
and |
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
(Delivered from the Bench at Toronto, Ontario on November 19, 2024 and edited for syntax, grammar, case citations and relevant provisions)
[1] This is a matter that strongly favoured settlement, in my view, based on the clear evidence before the Court.
[2] The Applicant Dejan Stojiljkovic is a citizen of Serbia who was recruited to play soccer for the Scarborough Soccer Club and issued both a closed, employer-specific work permit and an open work permit. Happy with “his professionalism and everything he has brought to the team,”
the Soccer Club wished to have him continue to play for them. The Applicant thus sought to extend his work permits before they expired.
[3] After waiting more than two years for the outcome and having the start of a two-year contract delayed as a result, he sought an order for mandamus from this Court to have the processing of the extension application completed and the decision communicated to him. Whether as a result of, but in any event subsequent to the application for mandamus, the Applicant received the decision of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada [IRCC] refusing his extension application because he failed to provide a valid team contract and pay stubs from the 2020 season until the present [Decision].
[4] I note that the Decision is dated March 6, 2023 but was not communicated to the Applicant until December 2023. This is but one example of unexplained repeated delays in this matter on the part of IRCC.
[5] The Applicant seeks judicial review of the Decision, arguing that it was unreasonable for IRCC to refuse the extension application for want of the very information that the Applicant in fact provided, i.e. the requisite contract requested in the September 15, 2022 email from IRCC. The signed contract, which was to run from November 15, 2021 to November 15, 2023, was filed online on October 9, 2022, with an explanatory letter from the Applicant following a few days later. I note that the contract was accompanied by a letter from the Soccer Club dated November 15, 2021, stating that the position would begin when the Applicant was authorized to work legally. I infer that until the contract began, there would be no paystubs in the interim.
[6] The Respondent argues, unreasonably and unsustainably, in my view, that the Applicant failed to provide the documentation requested in what the Respondent describes as the procedural fairness letter, i.e. the September 15, 2022 email from IRCC. As noted already, however, the Applicant has provided proof of the filing of the new team contract, which the Respondent submits was required to demonstrate he was a bona fide worker.
[7] Having considered the evidence before the Court on this matter and the parties’ submissions, I find that the Applicant has demonstrated the lack of intelligibility, transparency and justification of the Decision, further to the applicable, presumptive standard of review: Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at paras 10, 25, 99. It is evident to the Court that IRCC failed entirely to account for the evidence before it.
[8] The Applicant’s judicial review application thus will be granted, with the Decision quashed and the matter sent back for redetermination in no more than 120 days.
[9] The Applicant has requested its costs of this matter in the amount of $3,000. Having regard to rule 22 of the Federal Courts Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection Rules, SOR/93-22, I find that the Applicant has shown “special reasons”
warranting an award of costs, including repeated unanswered requests for clarification of the requested documentation and requests for the status of the application, not to mention the unexplained delay of nine months from the time the Decision issued until it was communicated to the Applicant. I rely in this regard on the decisions of this Court in Amawla v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 1132 at para 29 and Mamut v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 1593 at paras 129-130, and the award of costs made in these decisions. For the Respondent to argue the Applicant could have filed his application for mandamus sooner is no meaningful response, in my view.
[10] Exercising the Court’s discretion in awarding costs, I find the Applicant’s request for costs in the amount of $3,000 reasonable in the circumstances, and thus, the Applicant is awarded this amount payable by the Respondent.
[11] Neither party having proposed one, I determine that there is no question for certification.
Email this Content