This comes under the term "Re-Availment" - Article 1(C) of the UN Refugee Convention - who ceases to be a refugee
Under UK law (where I practiced immigration law for 6 years) - it was possible to contact the UKBA and outline the circumstances and reasons why a recognized refugee was seeking to renew their passport. If significant or compelling reasons existed the UKBA would write back to confirm that it wouldn't cause the refugee any difficulty and they would not fall foul of Article 1(C).
The Canadian case law below is all taken from the IRB website. Read the case of Chandrakumar at the very bottom of the post.
RE-AVAILMENT OF PROTECTION
Return to the country of nationality is the kind of re-availment that is most often discussed in the case law. Citing several cases in Kabengele, Mr. Justice Rouleau stated:
It is quite proper for the Refugee Division to take the plaintiff's actions into account in assessing his subjective fear. It is reasonable for it to conclude that the fact he returned to the country where he feared persecution makes the existence of such a fear unlikely (citations omitted)
However, the Court has cautioned that the mere fact of returning to a country of nationality is not determinative of whether a refugee claimant possesses a subjective fear. The Court gave the examples of evidence of a claimant's belief that country conditions have changed or evidence of a claimant's temporary visit while he or she remained in hiding, that would be evidence inconsistent with a finding of a lack of subjective fear.100
The credibility assessment of the reasons claimants give for returning to their country is vitally important. If they clearly state that they did not intend to re-avail themselves of the protection of their country and assert not having lost their subjective fear, absent an adverse finding of credibility, the Board would err in finding that the claimants had re-availed themselves of protection and did not have a subjective fear.101 In Kanji, the Board made no express finding that it disbelieved the claimant's evidence and it gave no reasons for doing so. The Court held that the claimant's clear statement that she did not re-avail herself of the protection of India, nor lose her subjective fear contradicted and negated any possible finding to the contrary on the basis of the purely circumstantial evidence of her returns to India.
In Caballero, where the claimant testified that he went back to Honduras intending to stay a year in order to sell his land, the Court agreed with the Refugee Division that his behaviour was inconsistent with a well-founded fear of persecution.
Even where the motivation for returning may be seen as quite compelling, a consideration of all the circumstances may result in a negative inference as to the existence of subjective fear. In Arayo, the principal claimant had returned to Chile and remained there for some nine weeks while she obtained the permission of the father of her child to remove the child from Chile. While the evidence regarding re-availment clearly indicated that it was for the sole purpose of allowing the mother to bring her son to Canada with her, the evidence did not go so far as to establish that other arrangements could not have been made so that the two claimants could have left Chile together when the mother first left.
Re-availment of the protection of one's country, in addition to physically returning there, can also include actions such as obtaining or renewing a passport or travel document, and leaving or emigrating through lawful channels. The same considerations apply to these forms of re-availment too. The surrounding circumstances and the credibility of the claimant's explanations determine whether it can reasonably be concluded that they indicate the absence of the subjective component of a well-founded fear of persecution.
In Vaitialingam, although the claimant argued that she did not intend to remain in Sri Lanka, the Court was satisfied that it was reasonable for the Board to conclude that the claimant did not harbour a genuine fear of persecution in Sri Lanka because she had voluntarily made two trips back to her country. The Board also considered that the claimant's renewal of her Sri Lankan passport for the purpose of travelling there indicated her willingness to entrust her welfare to the state of Sri Lanka.
In Chandrakumar, the Court held that Board erred in drawing the inference that the applicant re-availed himself of his country's protection from the mere fact that he renewed his passport. More evidence was required, particularly concerning the claimant's motivations in renewing his passport, namely whether his intention was to re-avail himself of Sri Lanka's protection.
