Writ of mandamus: Do you know a good lawyer?

[links18]

Check the Federal Court decisions...search Writ of Mandamus you will get a list of cases. Contact the lawyers representing the (non CIC) appellant. it won't be cheap. Also chances of a lawyer taking the case when its within published processing times are slim to none..the Citizenship Act doesn't state a timeline to decision making!

Yes, but there must be an absolute standard at some point beyond which the processing times are objectively unreasonable, regardless of what the actual average processing time is.

 

[Swede]

Yes, but there must be an absolute standard at some point beyond which the processing times are objectively unreasonable, regardless of what the actual average processing time is.

There is no inherent objectivity to the processing time of a citizenship application. Unless the government declares a longest reasonable processing time, the only benchmark is the average.

 

[links18]

There is no inherent objectivity to the processing time of a citizenship application. Unless the government declares a longest reasonable processing time, the only benchmark is the average.

So they could take ten years to process an application and we have no legal recourse this is unreasonable? If the standard by which CIC is judged is the average time they take to process applications then CIC can never be held to account. It would be its own judge and jury. The minister has already said that the benchmark should be one year for a routine case and two-years for non-routine, right?

 

[Msafiri]

Yes, but there must be an absolute standard at some point beyond which the processing times are objectively unreasonable, regardless of what the actual average processing time is.

Mandamus threshold is established by case law so there is a de-facto upper limit which seems to be about the 4 year delay mark...any half decent CIC lawyer just has to make sure CIC have a flag on any file reaching this threshold and/or to process the CIC 'sole responsible' parts of the application such as the immigration checks. In fact this would weed out those PRs who are in breach of the RO i,e those referred to as applying on their way to the airport at the 1095 days mark with day 1097 on a flight out of Canada never to come back but for the test and oath. CSIS/RCMP delays can be passed on.

The applicant still has to challenge this delay at the court - run through this forum and you will see multiple examples of applicants at or even beyond the Mandamus timeline who refuse to step up and go for the legal challenge. They have their reasons but if going toe to toe with the Feds you better be 101% sure there are no holes in your application!