Granted in error, Canadian citizenship revoked
Woman failed language, knowledge tests but still received certificate before office spotted goofs
TORONTO — A would-be Canadian who received a grade of zero out of six on her citizenship language test and four out of 20 on the test’s knowledge component was nonetheless granted a Canadian citizenship certificate.
A “series of administrative errors” put Haheen Afzal — despite her abysmal results on the tests — before a citizenship judge in Hamilton, Ont., swearing an oath to the Queen and being issued a citizenship certificate.
When the mistake was discovered, Afzal did not want to surrender her citizenship and fought to keep it.
The errant ceremony took place on Sept. 26, 2013, but the legal dispute — leading to its cancellation — was only recently resolved in the Federal Court of Canada.
Afzal failed the citizenship test twice before being awarded a citizenship certificate: the first time she scored 2/6 on language and 8/20 on knowledge. When she appeared before a citizenship judge and tried again, she scored even worse.
The citizenship judge noted in writing that Afzal failed the tests and did not qualify but mistakenly checked the “Granted” box on the decision form, court heard.
The next day, an official at the Citizenship and Immigration (CIC) office acknowledged that the judge’s decision had been “seen” and checked “Citizenship Granted” before sending the form along for processing.
A few days later, Afzal was asked to appear for a citizenship ceremony and she took the Oath of Citizenship.
After the ceremony a citizenship clerk finally noticed the mistake. He twice phoned Afzal and left messages.
The calls were not returned.
Two months later, CIC cancelled the certificate.
In court, her lawyer argued CIC bureaucrats did not have authority to cancel citizenship, only the Governor-in-Council, which acts on behalf of the Crown, has such power.
To accept that, Federal Court Justice Donald Rennie said in his ruling, would rise to the level of “absurdity.”
Before someone can become a Canadian citizen, they are required to demonstrate linguistic competence in either of Canada’s official languages and show an adequate knowledge of Canada’s social, civic and political norms.
“These competencies must be established before citizenship can be granted,” Rennie ruled.
Based on those criteria, even though a citizenship certificate was issued, the preconditions to citizenship had never been met, he said. Therefore, citizenship was not so much being revoked as a certificate that had not been legally issued was being cancelled. And that was within the power of CIC bureaucrats.