Success: IAD ADR
Another victory at the Immigration Appeal Division! We love winning. In this case, our client’s application (Spousal Sponsorship) was refused and they had been separated for a long time. They made the mistake of doing the Spousal Sponsorship application by themselves, without any professional help. The IRCC website let them know, of course, that they did not need to hire a professional for the application and they followed the guidance from the IRCC website. Alas, they tried their best but it was refused.
After the refusal, they came to CIL for help with the appeal. If you have read past posts on our website, we have won many appeals to the IAD. In fact, Alastair Clarke has won 100% of his appeals at the IAD. His first IAD appeal, back in 2007, was a case when he was an articling student. He articled at a large immigration law firm on Bay Street in Toronto and the lawyer on the case did not want to lose. It was a very difficult case where the Sponsor was convicted of murdering his sister-in-law. Based on the law at that time (the law was actually changed as a result of this appeal), a Sponsor was not eligible to sponsor if he had been convicted of a violent offence against a “family member”. Alastair Clarke successfully argued that a “sister-in-law” is not a “family member”, according to the definition in IRPA – she is a “relative”. He won the appeal.
In this case, our clients’ issues were not so serious. In fact, we worked with our clients, built a strong package of documentary evidence and contacted the tribunal. We also reached out to Minister’s Counsel regarding this situation. We have published previous articles on how to win at the IAD This post is from 2016; however, many of the suggestions in that article still apply in 2023.
The main point: PREPARE, PREPARE, PREPARE.
IAD appeals require a lot of work. Do not hire a lawyer who will not take the time to properly prepare the Sponsor, the Applicant, the witnesses and to prepare a substantive package of documentary evidence. All these steps are key to winning and too many lawyers try to take “short cuts”. Those “short cuts” can lead to refusals.
IAD ADR
Based on the strong evidence, we won this case through the IAD ADR process. This Alternative Dispute Resolution process is only available to appeals that have strong documentary evidence. It is extremely limited and it is not available in most appeals.
For our clients, we won at the IAD ADR. We satisfied the parties that all the reasons for the refusal had been satisfied.
Our clients will be reunited in Canada.
