Federal Court judicial review is the route open when an immigration decision carries no right of appeal. It does not ask whether the officer was right. It asks whether the decision was reasonable and whether the process was fair.
About this work
If the application succeeds, the court sets the decision aside and sends the matter back to be decided again by a different officer. That is the usual remedy, and it is worth being clear about what it is.
The court does not grant you a visa, a permit or permanent residence. It cannot substitute its own view for the officer's. Anyone who tells you a judicial review will get you status is describing a power the court does not have.
What a redetermination gives you is a decision made properly, on a record the court has said was mishandled. In practice that is often enough to change the outcome, but the second decision belongs to the officer.
The clock
15 days for a decision made inside Canada
An application for leave and judicial review has to be filed within days of the decision, not months. The period runs from when you were notified.
Section 72(2)(b) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act sets the first two, and Rule 10(1) of the Federal Courts Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection Rules sets the third. Under section 72(2)(c) a judge may allow an extended time for special reasons, but the request is argued inside the application itself, and a short delay is far easier to explain than a long one.
Side by side
5 points of difference
The two are often spoken about as if they were the same thing. They ask different questions, and the answer to one does not decide the other.
Scope
10 decisions, and four carry an appeal
Judicial review is the route where the Act gives no appeal, which is most of them. Where an appeal does exist it usually has to be taken first, and it is a better remedy than judicial review because the tribunal can hear new evidence and replace the decision outright.
Judicial review at the Federal Court is the route, and it needs leave.
6Visitor visa or super visa refusal
Federal Court, with leave
Federal Court, with leave
Federal Court, with leave
Spousal open work permit refusal
Federal Court, with leave
Permanent residence refusal, economic classes
Federal Court, with leave
Humanitarian and compassionate refusal
Federal Court, with leave
Take it first. The tribunal can hear new evidence and replace the decision.
4Family class sponsorship refusal
Immigration Appeal Division, the sponsor appeals, IRPA s. 63(1)
Residency obligation decided outside Canada
Immigration Appeal Division, IRPA s. 63(4)
Removal order against a permanent resident
Immigration Appeal Division, IRPA s. 63(3), unless s. 64 removes it
Refugee claim rejected by the Refugee Protection Division
Refugee Appeal Division, IRPA s. 110(1), with seven exceptions in s. 110(2)
The route
7 stages, each with its own clock
Every deadline below is set by the Act or by the Federal Courts Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection Rules, and the provision is named beside it. None of them is the firm's estimate.
The application for leave and judicial review is filed within the 15 or 60 day period, naming the decision under challenge. It can be filed before the GCMS notes arrive.
The applicant's record follows: the decision, the evidence that was before the officer, affidavits and the legal argument. This is the document leave turns on. The clock runs from filing, or from the day the tribunal's written reasons arrive if they had not come yet.
A respondent opposing leave serves affidavits and a memorandum of argument setting out the facts and the law relied on. This is where you learn the case you actually have to meet, rather than the one the refusal letter described.
A short reply memorandum answering what the Minister raised. The window is the tightest in the whole process, and it is the last thing the judge reads before deciding leave.
A judge decides on the papers whether the case is arguable, without further notice to the parties. There is no hearing at this stage and no reasons are given either way. Filed on the last available day, an inland file reaches this point 85 days after the decision.
If leave is granted, the order itself fixes the day, the place and the language of the hearing, along with the deadlines for the tribunal's record and any further materials. The date is set by the judge rather than by a standard interval.
If the application succeeds the decision is set aside and a different officer decides the application again. The court does not grant the visa or the permit itself.
Before the meeting
5 things to bring
Bring what you have and say what is missing. A meeting with the papers in front of it settles in one sitting what two telephone calls will not.
Our approach
The same four steps on every matter, whether it is a refusal at the Federal Court or a ticket at the Provincial Offences court.
Book a consultationWe take the full history and read the documents before offering an opinion. Most bad advice comes from acting on half the facts.
You get a candid read on strength, timeline and cost, including when the honest answer is that you do not need to hire anyone.
We prepare the application, the defence or the appeal properly the first time, because fixing a weak record later is harder and dearer.
You hear from us at each stage, and you hear what a wait actually means rather than a date chosen to sound better.
Reported decisions
7 allowed of 22 reported since 2023
Public judgments of the Federal Court with Kapil Rathod as counsel of record, each checkable by citation on the court's own site. The rest were dismissed and are listed with these ones.
Super visa, parents and grandparents
2026 FC 99Docket IMM-23381-24
Application allowedWork permit, Temporary Foreign Worker Program
2026 FC 105Docket IMM-18690-24
Application allowedTemporary resident visa
2026 FC 805Docket IMM-20802-24
Application allowedPermanent residence, Express Entry
2025 FC 275Docket IMM-1797-24
Application allowedWork permit, job offer
2024 FC 1928Docket IMM-6445-23
Application allowedStudy permit
2024 FC 1487Docket IMM-3700-23
Application allowedTemporary resident visa
2024 FC 1453Docket IMM-10337-23
Application allowedFederal Court judicial review is a narrow remedy with short deadlines and a real prospect of ending at leave.
It is worth bringing the refusal letter and the notes to somebody who files these before the 15 or 60 days run out.
Common questions
7 answered here
Written to be read once and acted on rather than to be rung about. Each answer is complete where the law allows a complete answer.
Broadly three. The decision was unreasonable, meaning the reasons do not follow from the evidence or do not hold together. The process was unfair, most often because you were not given a chance to answer a concern the officer relied on. Or the officer made an error of law.
Ignored evidence that squarely contradicts the finding is the strongest of the common arguments, because an officer is entitled to weigh evidence but not to pass over what cuts against the conclusion without saying why.
Disagreeing with how the officer weighed genuine evidence is the weakest, and it is the argument most self-represented applicants bring. Weighing is the officer's task, and the court will not repeat it.
Judicial review of an immigration decision is a two stage process, and most applications end at the first stage. You need the court's permission, called leave, before the matter is heard at all.
Leave is decided by a judge on the paper record, without a hearing and without reasons. If it is refused, the matter ends there and there is no appeal from that refusal.
This is why the applicant's record matters more than anything else in the process. It is usually the only thing the judge deciding leave will ever read.
Mandamus is the remedy for a file that has stopped moving rather than one that has been refused. It asks the court to order IRCC to make a decision, without saying what that decision should be.
It is available where there is a public duty to act, you have done everything required of you, you have asked for the decision and been met with delay, and the delay is longer than the process reasonably requires with no adequate explanation for it.
Processing that is merely slow is not enough. Waiting well beyond the published service standard, with unanswered enquiries and no explanation, is the pattern that supports the application. Filing one often produces a decision before it is ever heard.
Kapil Rathod carries the Federal Court work himself. It cannot be delegated to an immigration consultant or a paralegal, because only a lawyer may appear before the Federal Court of Canada.
He worked as a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant from 2011 and was called to the bar in 2019, so the application that was refused and the litigation that follows are both familiar ground. Files run in English, Hindi, Gujarati or Punjabi.
Expect months rather than weeks. Leave is usually decided a few months after the record is filed, and where leave is granted the hearing follows after that. A mandamus application often resolves sooner, because IRCC frequently makes the decision once the application has been filed.
The matter ends. Leave is decided on the papers without reasons, and there is no appeal from a refusal of leave. That finality is the reason the applicant's record has to be right the first time.
No. Only a lawyer may act for you before the Federal Court of Canada. A consultant can prepare and file applications with IRCC, and depending on their class of licence may appear at the Immigration and Refugee Board, but the Federal Court is outside that scope.
Federal Court judicial review runs on a 15 or 60 day clock. Bring the refusal letter and the date you received it.
