Federal Court says refugee division had no duty to advise Mexican citizen to hire counsel

Canada’s Federal Court has ruled that a citizen of Mexico, who asserted Convention refugee status or a need for protection, failed to establish that the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) had a duty to advise him to retain counsel. 

In Platas Ramos v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2025 FC 1774, the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) determined that the applicant was neither a Convention refugee nor a person in need of protection. 

The RPD described the determinative issue as the availability of an internal flight alternative (IFA) for the applicant. The RPD concluded that he indeed had a viable IFA in Mérida, Mexico. 

In October 2024, the RAD dismissed the applicant’s appeal and upheld the RPD decision. The RAD agreed with the RPD’s conclusion that the applicant had a viable IFA because he failed to establish that: 

• The unidentified agents of harm had either the motivation or the means to pursue him in Mérida to harm him 
• Conditions existed that would endanger his life and safety upon his relocation to Mérida 

The applicant, who was unrepresented before both divisions, applied for a judicial review of the RAD decision. He alleged that the decision-makers breached procedural fairness by ignoring their obligations, which the federal courts’ jurisprudence imposed on all IRB members who dealt with self-represented claimants. 

The applicant argued that the RPD insufficiently explained the complexity and significance of the issues, that the RAD should have addressed his lack of representation, and that he would have provided the required evidence if he had counsel to assist him. 

The applicant asserted that the decision was unreasonable, given that it: 

• contained conclusions incompatible with the case file’s factual constraints 
• did not expressly refer to the national documentation package (NDP) for Mexico 
• relied on assumptions about the reasonably expected behaviour of agents of harm, which contradicted some NDP excerpts 
• failed to infer that the agents of harm were criminals, particularly considering his father’s past, who would jeopardize his life even in the proposed IFA 

IFA finding upheld

The Federal Court dismissed the judicial review application. The court saw no basis to intervene because the applicant failed to meet his burden of proving a procedural fairness breach or an unreasonable decision. The court said the RAD was entitled to find a viable IFA in Mérida. 

First, regarding procedural fairness, the court held that the applicant failed to establish the RPD’s unfair process or the RAD’s duty to advise him to retain counsel. 

According to the court, before the RPD, the applicant requested no adjournment of the hearing to enable him to hire counsel and confirmed his intention to move forward without counsel. 

The court found that the RPD took numerous positive steps to ensure the applicant’s meaningful participation and his understanding of the process, the issues, and the essence of the IFA analysis. Specifically, the RPD explained that it needed to understand the following: 

• who and what the applicant feared
• what circumstances made him afraid 
• what would happen if he returned to Mexico 
• whether he had a safe potential residence in the country 
• whether it would be reasonable and practical for him to live somewhere else in Mexico
• who were the alleged agents of harm 
• what was the nature of his father’s possible involvement with a criminal organization 

The court concluded that the applicant understood the case he needed to meet and received a full and fair opportunity to respond, yet failed to identify the criminal group supposedly involved. 

Second, regarding the decision’s reasonableness, the court ruled that the RAD was entitled to find that the agents of harms lacked the means and the capacity to follow the applicant to Mérida, given that he failed to name such agents or otherwise produce evidence enabling the decision-makers to conclude that criminals would endanger his life even in the proposed IFA. 

The court found the RAD entitled to determine that the applicant would not need to cut off contact with his family members or conceal his location from them to be safe in Mérida, based on the lack of evidence that the agents of harm had approached or threatened his mother, brother, and sister, who had remained in Mexico.