4. Understand how your appeal will be decided

If you file an appeal, the Minister can decide to argue against your appeal. This is called an intervention. An intervention can happen at any time before the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) makes their decision about your appeal.

If the Minister decides to oppose your appeal, you will receive a Notice of intervention and copies of all the documents the Minister plans to use as evidence. You have the right to reply to the Minister’s documents by submitting a Reply Record. The Reply Record includes:

• any additional documents that support your reply that you have not already included in your Appellant’s Record
• the law you’re relying on that supports your reply
• a memorandum that responds to the Minister’s arguments and documents that refer to your evidence and the law

You can also include all or part of a transcript from your refugee hearing that supports your reply that you have not already included. But, it’s not necessary to include a transcript. You can simply include a written statement that refers to the parts of the audio recording of your refugee hearing in your memorandum.

You must file your reply within 15 days after you received the Minister’s intervention documents.

If you miss the deadline, you must include an application for an extension of time when you file your reply. You must give reasons why you couldn’t file the reply on time.

Hearings

Your appeal is usually “paper-based”. This means there is no oral hearing. Instead, the RAD makes a decision based on the written evidence submitted.

You can ask for an oral hearing if you want to rely on new evidence that meets the test in Step 3. If the RAD orders an oral hearing, they will send you a Notice to Appear. The Notice will include the date, time, and location of your hearing as well as the issues that the RAD will consider.

If there is no oral hearing, the RAD will give their decision and reasons in writing. This could be 90 days after the date that all your documents were filed. But sometimes the decision can take much longer.

If you have an oral hearing, the RAD might tell you their decision with reasons at the end of the hearing, or the RAD will send you the written decision and reasons in the mail. If you are told the decision and reasons at the hearing, the RAD must still send a written Notice of the decision by mail.