Can I make a humanitarian application while my refugee claim is being processed?
Short answer
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act governs when an application based on humanitarian and compassionate considerations may be examined: it cannot be examined if a similar application is already pending, and a twelve-month bar generally applies after a refugee claim has been rejected (s. 25(1.2)).
In detail
Subsection 25(1.2) of the Act sets specific restrictions. A humanitarian and compassionate application cannot be examined where an earlier application of the same kind is still pending. A twelve-month period following the last rejection of a refugee claim also applies as a general rule, subject to the exceptions provided for in the Act.
These rules are about when the application can be examined, not about the merits of the file. An application filed at the wrong moment simply risks not being looked at.
Dates therefore become decisive: the date the refugee claim was filed, the date of the decision, the date of any recourse, and the date of any earlier humanitarian and compassionate application. This is an area where a calendar mistake is costly, and where advice from a lawyer or a legal aid office is particularly useful.
What to document
A complete, dated timeline of all your applications: when the refugee claim was filed, the date of the decision, the date you received it, any appeals or judicial reviews, and any humanitarian and compassionate application already filed, with its current status.
Put your facts in writing, free. Writing your version down early, keeping your documents dated and preparing your questions for a lawyer: the tool is there to document, never to advise.
Open the application Up to 3 files, no card · see the plans
Official sources
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What this page is not
This is general legal information about the law of Quebec and Canada, dated and sourced. It is not legal advice, not a strategy, and not a prediction about the outcome of a case. In Quebec, only lawyers and notaries may give legal advice (Act respecting the Barreau du Québec, ss. 128 and 133). Laws and amounts change: the official source always prevails over us.