Practicing Exclusively in Canadian Immigration Law

A mandamus order is a judicial command to a government body to do, or forbear from, doing a specific act which it is obligated in law to do. The Federal Court's decision in Vaziri v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2006 FC 1159, is one of the most cited case in the immigration context for setting forth the test for when a mandamus order will be given.  There, Justice Snider stated: The equitable remedy of mandamus lies to compel the performance of a public legal duty that a public authority refuses or neglects to carry out when called upon to do so. Mandamus can be used to control procedural delays (Blencoe v. British Columbia (Human Rights Commission) [2000] 2 S.C.R. 307 at para. 149). The test for mandamus is set out in Apotex Inc. v. Canada (Attorney General), [1994] 1 F.C. 742 (C.A.), aff'd [1994] 3 S.C.R. 1100 (and, more recently, discussed in the immigration context in Dragan v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [2003] 4 F.C. 189 (T.D.), aff'd [2003] F.C.J. No. 813, 2003 FCA 233,). The eight factors are: (i)  There must be a public legal duty to act; (ii)  The duty must be owed to the Applicants; (iii)  ...