‘Comedy of errors’ lets woman become Canadian citizen despite abysmal results on citizenship tests

Well, mistakes can happen but this one shouldn’t have:

A “series of administrative errors” put Haheen Afzal — despite her abysmal results on the tests — before a citizenship judge in Hamilton, Ont., swearing an oath to the Queen and being issued a citizenship certificate.

When the mistake was discovered, Ms. Afzal did not want to surrender her citizenship and fought to keep it.

The errant ceremony took place on Sept. 26, 2013, but the legal dispute — leading to its cancellation — was only recently resolved in the Federal Court of Canada.

Ms. Afzal failed the citizenship test twice before being awarded a citizenship certificate: the first time she scored 2/6 on language and 8/20 on knowledge. When she appeared before a citizenship judge and tried again, she scored even worse.

The citizenship judge noted in writing that Ms. Afzal failed the tests and did not qualify but mistakenly checked the “Granted” box on the decision form, court heard.

The next day, an official at the Citizenship and Immigration Canada CIC office acknowledged that the judge’s decision had been “seen” and checked “Citizenship Granted” before sending the form along for processing.

Eventually, CIC’s decision to cancel her citizenship certificate was appropriately upheld by the Federal Court.

‘Comedy of errors’ lets woman become Canadian citizen despite abysmal results on citizenship tests