PRRA Procedural Fairness Challenge Dismissed

The Federal Court dismissed a PRRA procedural fairness challenge by a Turkish national on October 30, 2026, finding no basis to overturn the refusal of his Pre-Removal Risk Assessment. The Court found the applicant had not shown unfairness arising from proceeding without counsel or alleged interpretation problems, and upheld the officer’s credibility findings as reasonable.

Case Summary

• Case & citation: Mert v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 1332; court file IMM-17935-25.
• Decision date & judge: October 30, 2026, by the Honourable Madam Justice Blackhawk.
• Issue: The applicant challenged the June 17, 2025 PRRA refusal, alleging procedural unfairness and unreasonable credibility findings.
• Outcome: The application for judicial review was dismissed, leaving the PRRA refusal in place; no question was certified.

PRRA refusal followed ineligible refugee claim

Ozan Mert, a citizen of Türkiye, entered Canada on December 27, 2022, and made a refugee protection claim. His claim was found ineligible for a hearing by the Refugee Protection Division under subsection 101(1)(c.1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

He then applied for a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA). The officer refused the application on June 17, 2025, finding that Mr. Mert was not credible because of numerous inconsistencies among his written narrative, testimony and supporting evidence.

The officer accepted that Mr. Mert is Alevi and a member of the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, or Republican People’s Party. However, the officer concluded that he had not established a risk of persecution, torture, risk to life, or cruel and unusual treatment or punishment if returned to Türkiye.

PRRA procedural fairness arguments rejected

Mr. Mert argued that the PRRA hearing was unfair because he was unrepresented and because misunderstandings or translation errors allegedly occurred. Justice Blackhawk assessed procedural fairness on a correctness, or correctness-like, standard and considered whether he knew the case to meet and had a full and fair opportunity to respond.

The Court noted that Mr. Mert had retained counsel before the hearing, but counsel was unavailable on the scheduled date. There was no record that he or his counsel sought an adjournment, and no evidence that further written material was submitted after the hearing.

Justice Blackhawk found that proceeding without counsel was not, by itself, a breach of procedural fairness. The officer had explained the process with the assistance of a Turkish interpreter and advised Mr. Mert that he could request clarification or object.

On the interpretation allegations, the Court noted that no hearing transcript or recording was included in the application record. The PRRA decision stated that both Mr. Mert and the interpreter reported no difficulty understanding each other, and that Mr. Mert did not raise objections during the hearing. The Court found no basis to conclude that procedural fairness had been breached.

Credibility findings were reasonably open to officer

On the merits, the parties agreed that the reasonableness standard applied. The applicant argued that the officer had improperly discounted corroborating material, including a medical report and Minutes of Arrest, and had made unreasonable comments about his political beliefs and activities.

The Court found that the applicant was asking it to reweigh the evidence, which is not the reviewing court’s role. Justice Blackhawk concluded that the officer had assessed the record as a whole, including the applicant’s narrative, hearing testimony, medical report, Minutes of Arrest and his sister’s statutory declaration.

Justice Blackhawk agreed that one finding concerning the plausibility of the Minutes of Arrest was not supported by the evidentiary record. However, the officer had also identified a separate inconsistency between that document and the applicant’s narrative and testimony concerning visits by Turkish authorities in 2021. The applicant did not address that inconsistency, which contributed to the officer giving the document little weight.

The Court also noted the officer’s findings that the applicant had not provided evidence that authorities looked for him at his parents’ home in 2022 or evidence of other alleged threats. The Court held that the officer had grappled with the evidence and that the cumulative credibility findings were not unreasonable.

Limited effect of the judgment

The judgment concerns the particular PRRA record before the Court. It does not grant refugee protection or a PRRA application; it dismisses the judicial review and maintains the officer’s June 2025 refusal.

For this case, the Court emphasized the absence of record evidence supporting the claimed interpretation problems and deferred to the officer’s credibility assessment where the findings were grounded in the overall evidentiary record.

Source: Federal Court Decisions