IRB

1. Access to legal aid in immigration related proceedings directly engages fundamental rights;
2. Effective functioning of the justice system including the Immigration and Refugee Board requires that individuals are represented by skilled, competent legal professionals;
3. In the absence of legal aid, vulnerable individuals will be denied access to representation;
4. There are significant disparities in access to legal aid across the country;

1. Citizenship and Immigration Canada is currently studying the process by which humanitarian and compassionate reviews are done;
2. CIC is also studying the process for assessing the risks a rejected refugee claimant may face should she/he be removed from Canada;
3. One proposal which is receiving serious consideration by CIC is to have CIC officials make decisions about claimants' refugee claims, humanitarian and compassionate applications and risk assessments prior to the matter being referred to the IRB;

individuals with on-going processes with CIC, CBSA, and/or the IRB are required to provide separate address notification to each,

1. Refugee claimants not infrequently find themselves in detention even after they have been found eligible;
2. All persons detained in an Immigration Holding Centre are routinely transported to and from hearings in handcuffs and those held in jail (detained under Immigration Act) are conveyed in handcuffs and leg irons;
3. These restraints are in certain cases not removed even when a refugee claim is heard before the IRB;
4. This seems to contradict the spirit in which a refugee claim is supposed to be made;
5. The practice is a violation of UN standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners;

1. The CCR has passed res. 11, May 1992; res. 23 November 1993 and res. 29, June 1994.
2. Appointments to the Immigration and Refugee Board remain political, despite the existence of an advisory committee on appointments.
3. This politicization manifests itself not only in poorly qualified candidates being appointed or reappointed, but as well, highly qualified candidates not being appointed or reappointed.
4. The continued political nature of appointments means that there remains a core of Immigration and Refugee Board Refugee Division members who are not capable of functioning competently without the assistance of another Refugee Division member present at the hearing to assist them.

1. The Immigration and Refugee Board has been handling all claims to Convention refugee status from Chileans, Mexicans and other nationalities as if all such claims were manifestly unfounded claims (MUCs);
2. This practice of the IRB denies the individuality of claims and goes against the policy of case by case determination;
3. This practice by the IRB may lead to the rejection of valid claims;
4. This practice of the IRB may be applied to refugee claimants from other countries;

1. The IRB in Montreal has adopted a new policy on scheduling refugee claims and as a result will be hearing a large percentage of more recently arrived refugee claimants ahead of claims that have been waiting for a longer time;
2. This policy will increase the hardship of many refugee claimants who have already been suffering the effects of long delays;
3. Administrative needs should not be put ahead of the rights of refugees to a just and speedy hearing of their claims;

1. Presently no guidelines exist at the IRB with respect to making children's best interests a primary consideration in appropriate cases before it;
2. The need to assign primary consideration to the best interests of children is required by international legal instruments to which Canada is a party;
3. The Federal Court of Canada has failed to give effect to the best interests of children representing more than a consideration in immigration matters affecting children's interests;

1. The IRB (CRDD) currently allows documents from its Documentation Centres to be entered into evidence at hearings despite the absence of the name of the source of the document;
2. This practice contravenes the principles of fairness;

1. The IRB Chairperson has issued guidelines on unaccompanied minors;
2. There is nothing in the guidelines to encourage expedited hearings, nor avoiding full hearings, nor on recognizing the principle of family reunification;
3. There are often compelling reasons to expedite unaccompanied minors and very little difference between their claims and the claims of their parents, siblings or relatives whose claims have already been adjudicated positively;