Federal Court Allows Judicial Review of PRRA Decision

Date: 20260623 Docket: IMM-4046-25 Citation: 2026 FC 855 Vancouver, British Columbia, June 23, 2026 PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Ahmed BETWEEN: [NAME] Applicant and THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION Respondent

REASONS AND

JUDGMENT I. Overview [ 1 ] The Applicant, [NAME], seeks judicial review of a decision made by a Senior Immigration Officer (the “Officer” ), dated November 18, 2024, refusing his application for a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment ( “PRRA” ). [ 2 ] The Applicant submits that the Officer did not properly apply the legal test for an internal flight alternative ( “IFA” ) because they relied on out-of-date articles in the national documentation package ( “NDP” ). [ 3 ] For the following reasons, I agree. The Officer’s analysis does not reasonably reflect a timely evaluation of the risks faced by the Applicant.

Accordingly, I allow this application for judicial review.

II. Background [ 4 ] The Applicant is a 62-year-old Kurdish citizen of Turkey. [ 5 ] In March 2023, the Applicant arrived in Canada. At that time, he had been away from Turkey for over 27 years. Because he had previously made an asylum claim in the United States, he was ineligible to make a claim in Canada. [ 6 ] In July 2023, the Applicant filed a PRRA application, stating that he faced a threat from a powerful Turkish family, called the [NAME], and he faced persecution based on his Kurdish identity. [ 7 ] On November 8, 2024, in preparation for the PRRA decision, the Officer held a hearing pursuant to paragraph 113(b) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act , SC 2001, c 27 ( “ IRPA ” ). While the Officer noted some inconsistencies regarding the Applicant’s detentions during the 1990s, they ultimately found the Applicant to be a reliable narrator. [ 8 ] In a decision dated November 18, 2024, the Officer refused the Applicant’s PRRA. The Officer found that the Applicant had a viable IFA in Istanbul. Specifically, the Officer found that there was insufficient evidence to show that the [NAME] could locate the Applicant in a largely populated city that was on the other side of the country to where the feud had started. Additionally, although the Officer accepted that the Applicant faced persecution based on his Kurdish identity when he lived 27-years prior in Gaziantep, the Officer determined that the Applicant would not face a forward-looking risk of persecution in Istanbul. The Officer particularly noted the large Kurdish population in the city and reports stating that the Turkish government has taken steps to mitigate persecution based on race or ethnicity. The Officer further found that there was no other factor that would make living in Istanbul unreasonable for the Applicant. [ 9 ] This is the decision presently under review.

III. Issue and Standard of Review [ 10 ] The sole issue in this judicial review is whether the Officer’s decision is reasonable. [ 11 ] The parties submit that the applicable standard of review is reasonableness ( Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov , 2019 SCC 65 ( “ Vavilov ” ). I agree. [ 12 ] Reasonableness is a deferential, but robust, standard of review ( Vavilov at paras 12-13). The reviewing court must determine whether the decision under review, including both its rationale and outcome, is transparent, intelligible, and justified ( Vavilov at para 15). A reasonable decision is one that is based on an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis and that is justified in relation to the facts and law that constrain the decision maker ( Vavilov at para 85). Whether a decision is reasonable depends on the relevant administrative setting, the record before the decision maker, and the impact of the decision on those affected by its consequences ( Vavilov at paras 88-90, 94, 133-135). [ 13 ] For a decision to be unreasonable, the applicant must establish the decision contains flaws that are sufficiently central or significant ( Vavilov at para 100). Not all errors or concerns about a decision will warrant intervention. A reviewing court must refrain from reweighing evidence before the decision maker, and it should not interfere with factual findings absent exceptional circumstances ( Vavilov at para 125). Flaws or shortcomings must be more than superficial or peripheral to the merits of the decision, or a “minor misstep” ( Vavilov at para 100).

IV. Analysis [ 14 ] The Applicant does not challenge the Officer’s findings regarding the risks posed by the [NAME]. Instead, the Applicant notes that the Officer’s analysis relies on news articles that were dated 2019 and 2020 and therefore submits that it does not reflect the present situation in Turkey. The Applicant submits that, because the Officer failed to consider up-to-date articles, they did not properly appreciate the risks to [NAME] at the time of their decision. [ 15 ] The Respondent submits that, although the Officer did not cite particularly recent articles, the Officer relied on the documents the Applicant had cited and that were included in the most recent NDP in order to reach their conclusion regarding the risk to [NAME]. The Respondent further maintains that the Officer is presumed to have general knowledge of country condition documents. [ 16 ] In my view, the Officer’s reliance on articles from four and five years before their decision does not reasonably reflect the applicable legal and factual constraints. [ 17 ] As counsel for the Applicant emphasized at the hearing, the very purpose of a PRRA is to provide a timely evaluation of the risks to an applicant in order to uphold Canada’s commitment to the principle of non-refoulement ( [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2014 FC 668 ( “ [NAME] ” ) at para 17). Indeed, the goal of a PRRA is to assess the risks to an applicant in the country of removal pursuant to sections 96 and 97 of the IRPA given the present reality of the country ( [NAME] v Canada (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) , 2006 FC 1370 at para 27; [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2023 FC 1297 at para 44).

Accordingly, the legal context applicable to a PRRA requires them to be closely linked in time to removals ( [NAME] v Canada (Solicitor General) (FC) , 2005 FC 347 at para 40; [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2005 FC 852 at para 16). [ 18 ] As the focus of a PRRA is on timeliness, this Court has found that [NAME] have a duty to rely on recent country condition documents to evaluate the potential risks an applicant faces upon imminent removal ( [NAME] at para 18; [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2026 FC 563 ( “ [NAME] ” ) at paras 58-59). In [NAME] , this Court held that the basis for its deference to [NAME] is their demonstrated research and intimate familiarity with current country conditions in the applicant’s country of removal (at para 18). [NAME] was determined prior to Vavilov , I find that it reflects Vavilov ’s clarification that an administrative decision maker’s expertise is not presumed simply based on the legislature’s choice to delegate a particular function to them (at para 28). Rather, the reviewing court analyzes the administrative decision considering the demonstrated expertise ( Vavilov at para 93).

Accordingly, it is no surprise that this Court has repeatedly affirmed [NAME] ’s finding that [NAME] must demonstrate their expertise through grounding their analysis of an applicant’s risks in the most recent country condition documents ( [NAME] at para 59; [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2017 FC 718 at paras 19-20). [ 19 ] Given the lack of any reference to any country conditions regarding the Applicant’s risk from the past four years before the Officer’s decision, which were available on the record and ran contrary to the Officer’s finding, I find that the Officer did not reasonably fulfill their duty to demonstrate that they reviewed the Applicant’s risks based on the present reality of the country of removal. [ 20 ] In making this finding, I acknowledge that the Officer is not obliged to comb through the most recent NDP to build the Applicant’s case for him ( [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2019 FC 549 at para 16; [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2021 FC 1081 at paras 32-34). This was the case in [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2020 FC 655, where my colleague, Justice Fuhrer, found that it was not a reviewable error for the PRRA officer to fail to refer to the most recent NDP because the applicant had not identified any link between the risks presented in the NDP and his own personal situation (at para 30). That is not the situation that was before the Officer in the case before me. [ 21 ] In the Applicant’s submissions to the PRRA Officer, he provided three articles on how Kurdish people living in Turkey and in Istanbul in particular are affected by discrimination, hate speech, and violent attacks for expressing political opinions or speaking Kurdish. I note that these articles were dated from 2019, 2020, and 2022. Nevertheless, the Applicant’s submissions showed a link between country conditions and his risk as a Kurdish person. [ 22 ] In the Officer’s assessment of the risks to Kurdish people in Turkey, they cited only these articles from 2019 and 2020. I acknowledge that the Officer also cited articles from 2024, however, these references were with regards only to the population statistics in Turkey, rather than any analysis pertaining to the risks the Applicant may face. Additionally, despite the Respondent’s submissions at the hearing that the articles from 2019 and 2020 were part of the most recent NDP, the NDP also contained documents from 2023 and 2024 that presented a different assessment of the risks than the one described by the Officer. In particular, the Officer found that Turkey had taken big steps forward in addressing discrimination towards Kurdish people. However, the NDP shows “serious concerns” persist regarding the use of violence and hate speech against Kurds who express their identity and there remains continued violations of Kurdish people’s cultural rights. Given the NDP’s competing descriptions of risks the Applicant faces as a Kurd in Turkey, the complete absence of any discussion regarding these competing descriptions suggests that the Officer was not alert and sensitive to the evidence before them ( [NAME] v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) , 1998 CanLII 8667 at para 17 (FC); [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2019 FC 1336 at para 21). [ 23 ] I therefore find that the Officer did not reasonably conduct a timely evaluation of the risks the Applicant faces as a Kurdish person in Turkey.

V. Conclusion [ 24 ] Ultimately, the PRRA Officer considered the Applicant’s submissions in absence of any analysis of the country’s current risk levels. In this sense, the Officer’s analysis does not reflect the applicable factual and legal constraints that require a reasonable assessment of the present reality the Applicant may face in Turkey ( Vavilov at para 99).

Accordingly, I allow this application for judicial review. [ 25 ] The parties did not raise any question for certification, and I agree that none arises.

JUDGMENT in IMM-4046-25 THIS COURT’S

JUDGMENT is that : This application for judicial review is allowed. The underlying decision is quashed and the matter remitted to a different officer for redetermination. There is no question to certify. "[NAME]." Judge FEDERAL COURT SOLICITORS OF RECORD Docket: IMM-4046-25 STYLE OF CAUSE: [NAME] v THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION PLACE OF HEARING: TORONTO, ONTARIO DATE OF HEARING: June 2, 2026

REASONS AND

JUDGMENT: AHMED J. DATED: june 23, 2026 APPEARANCES: [NAME] For The Applicant [NAME] For The Respondent SOLICITORS OF RECORD: [NAME], Ontario For The Applicant Attorney General of Canada Toronto, Ontario For The Respondent