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A negative refugee decision is not the end. The Refugee Appeal Division provides a critical second look at your claim, with the ability to consider new evidence and correct errors made at the RPD.
Book My Consultation →Giving refugees a meaningful second chance through rigorous appellate advocacy.
You have 15 working days from the date you receive the written reasons for the RPD decision to file your notice of appeal and appellant's record with the RAD. This is a strict deadline under the Refugee Appeal Division Rules, and late filings are generally not accepted. Contact a lawyer immediately upon receiving a negative RPD decision to preserve your appeal rights.
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The Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) was established under section 110 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) to provide a paper-based appeal of Refugee Protection Division (RPD) decisions. A claimant whose refugee claim is rejected by the RPD may appeal to the RAD within 15 working days of receiving the RPD decision, as prescribed by subrule 3(2) of the Refugee Appeal Division Rules, SOR/2012-257.
The RAD conducts a fresh assessment of the RPD's findings of fact and mixed fact and law, applying a correctness standard to legal questions and a reasonableness standard to factual findings, following the framework established in Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v. Huruglica, 2016 FCA 93. This means the RAD can substitute its own findings where it determines the RPD erred, rather than merely deferring to the RPD's conclusions.
Not all claimants have access to the RAD. Under section 110(2) of IRPA, certain categories are excluded, including claims referred to the RPD as a result of an exception to the Safe Third Country Agreement, claims found to have no credible basis, claims found to be manifestly unfounded, and claims by designated foreign nationals. Our lawyers assess whether you have standing to appeal and, where no RAD appeal is available, advise on alternative remedies such as judicial review directly to the Federal Court.
Section 110(4) of IRPA permits the RAD to consider evidence that arose after the RPD's rejection or that was not reasonably available at the time of the RPD hearing, provided the evidence is credible, relevant, and new. The Federal Court of Appeal in Singh v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FCA 96, confirmed that this provision must be interpreted in light of the purpose of the RAD as a true appellate body.
Our lawyers carefully assess potential new evidence to ensure it meets the statutory criteria. Examples of admissible new evidence include: updated country condition reports issued after the RPD hearing, medical or psychological evidence that was unavailable at the time, evidence of changed personal circumstances (such as new threats received after the hearing), and evidence demonstrating that conditions in the country of origin have materially deteriorated since the RPD decision.
Where new evidence is admitted, the RAD may also order an oral hearing under section 110(6) of IRPA if it determines that credibility is central to the issue and the new evidence, if accepted, would justify allowing the appeal. Oral hearings at the RAD are rare but can be decisive. Our litigation team prepares thoroughly for oral RAD hearings, including witness preparation and detailed submissions on the new evidence.
The most common errors we identify in RPD decisions include flawed credibility assessments, misapplication of the internal flight alternative (IFA) test, failure to properly consider country condition evidence from the National Documentation Package, and errors in the application of section 96 (Convention refugee) and section 97 (person in need of protection) of IRPA. The RPD must assess credibility by reference to the totality of the evidence, not on isolated inconsistencies, as established in Maldonado v. Minister of Employment and Immigration, [1980] 2 FC 302 (CA).
On the IFA analysis, we scrutinize whether the RPD properly applied both prongs of the test: first, whether the claimant faces a serious possibility of persecution in the proposed IFA; and second, whether it would be objectively unreasonable, considering all circumstances including the claimant's personal profile, to require the claimant to seek refuge there. Errors in applying the second prong, particularly failures to consider gender, age, health, or family situation, frequently result in successful appeals.
When the RAD dismisses an appeal, we advise on applying for leave and judicial review to the Federal Court under section 72 of IRPA. The RAD's own decision is subject to reasonableness review under the Vavilov framework, and we have successfully challenged RAD decisions that repeated or compounded the RPD's errors rather than conducting a genuine independent analysis.
Mîra v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 603 In this Federal Court judicial review, Jia Junaid of Lexaltico LLP successfully challenged the Refugee Appeal Division’s decision to exclude the applicants from refugee protection under Article 1F(b) of the Refugee Convention.
Justice McHaffie found the RAD’s decision unreasonable on two grounds: the RAD improperly excluded new evidence about corruption within Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), and the RAD’s exclusion analysis relied on foreign convictions without meaningfully grappling with the applicants’ credible evidence that the charges were politically fabricated.
The application for judicial review was allowed. The Federal Court set aside the decision and remitted the appeal to a differently constituted panel, which is the relief sought on judicial review: the exclusion finding no longer stands and the appeal is heard afresh.
Article 1F(b) exclusions are hard to displace, and harder still where the conviction comes from a European Union member state with a functioning court system. The argument required persuading the Court that evidence of corruption inside the prosecuting authority was relevant and had been wrongly shut out, and that a conviction from such a state could not simply be taken at face value.
What made the exclusion unusual. The Minister raised Article 1F(b) in 2020 and then withdrew that intervention in October 2023 after reviewing the evidence. The Refugee Protection Division found our client generally credible and not excluded. The Refugee Appeal Division then raised exclusion on its own motion and excluded her, without the Minister intervening. The finding under review was one the Minister had already abandoned.
On the exclusion itself, the Division reasoned that a conviction from Romania could be relied on because it is a country where the rule of law prevails, citing Arevalo Pineda for that proposition but not the passages of the same decision requiring an objective assessment of the claimant’s own evidence and satisfaction that the issuing authority itself respects the rule of law. The Court held that reliance on authority stripped of its qualifying context does not meet the standard, and observed that no assessment of the issuing authority was ever carried out. Read the full decision on CanLII.
This result demonstrates Lexaltico’s commitment to thorough preparation, evidence-driven advocacy, and holding administrative decision-makers to the standard of reasonableness the law requires.
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55 University Ave, Suite 1100
Toronto, ON M5J 2H7
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Lexaltico LLP
How Lexaltico LLP handles personal information, under PIPEDA and Ontario law.
When you use a form on this site, email us or telephone us, we collect what you choose to send: your name, email address, telephone number and a description of the situation. Nothing on this site requires you to give more than that.
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This site publishes several hundred pages about Ontario law. They are written carefully, they cite statutes and cases by name, and they are reviewed. None of that makes them advice about your matter. Law is applied to facts, and we do not know yours.
The difference is practical rather than technical. A page explaining that spousal support is usually indefinite after a twenty year marriage is accurate as a general statement and may be wrong about you, because of a domestic contract you signed, a period of separation you have forgotten, or an income that is not what a tax return says it is.
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Case results described anywhere on this site are real and are described accurately, and they are specific to their own facts. A settlement at three times the original offer happened because of that employer, that contract and that person’s history. It says nothing about what your matter is worth.
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These pages describe the law of Ontario, and of Alberta only where a page says so expressly. They do not describe the law of any other province, territory or country. Law that looks similar across jurisdictions frequently is not.
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