The Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal are Canada’s courts that deal with cases involving Canada’s national government, including Canada’s immigration authorities.  In most cases, if a person receives a negative decision from an immigration authority, the person can apply to the Federal Court for “leave” (permission) to apply for “judicial review” of the decision.  Judicial review is like an appeal, but on very narrow grounds.  An application to the Federal Court must be started within 15 days of receiving a negative decision.  If the decision is made outside of Canada, the time to start the application is 60 days.  It is very important that a person who receives a negative decision from immigration authorities to contact a competent lawyer as soon as possible.  The lawyer will advise whether there are grounds to apply to the Federal Court.  In general, the result of a successful Federal Court application is the decision is cancelled and Immigration has to reconsider the case.

In cases of financial need, Legal Aid is available to clients who wish to challenge certain types of decisions in the Federal Court.

The Federal Court also deals with cases in which immigration authorities have unreasonably delayed the making of a decision.  In such cases, the Federal Court sometimes orders that the government pay the person’s legal costs, in whole or in part.  For an example of such a case, see the M.S.D.B. case in the section “our cases.”

Our firm has decades worth of experience in representing people in all types of immigration cases in the Federal Court.  Some of our cases are summarized in the section “our cases.”

Last revised: January 2007