I was in the same situation and stupidly replied to Procedural Fairness Letter myself. If you are going to apply on your own, make sure you write a long explanation and include evidence. Or hire a lawyer to help you with the fairness letter.
I did not realize how important it was to hire a lawyer to reply to the letter. I received a 5-year ban. After I received the ban i made a search on Fairness Letters and found this firm's article on their website.
https://www.matkowsky.ca/procedural-fairness-letter. I called them and they really were professsional and after talking to me I felt confident that they can help me. They specialize in more difficult cases. I hired them for fighting the 5-year misrepresentation ban through the Judicial Review. They were so good, they settled the case with the lawyer from IRCC. The lawyer from IRCC decided to settle and accept the settlement offer instead of going through the whole Federal Court process. Matkowsky Immigration Lawyers know what they are doing and can help. I was concerned with fighting through the Judicial Review process because it can be expensive if it has to go all the way to Federal Court. But Matkowsky's Senior Lawyer Sonia told me most cases like this they settle the case, and it doesnt need to go all the way to Federal Court so the fees are cheaper.
I spent alot of time searching and reading. It has been very stressful on me. But I am happy now that I got the ban removed and my application approved. If you decide to reply on your own and get a ban, call them to get help fighting the ban.
Here is some information that they sent me after I consulted them. It is really good explaining the Judicial Review process to fight the ban and it is not that expensive if the case settles.
Wishing you Good Luck!
What is the Process of a Judicial Review?
There are three stages in a successful judicial review:
- Leave: First, we must apply for Leave. We will have two opportunities to engage in settlement discussions before the Leave stage ends. As part of the Leave stage we need to submit an application record. An application record consists of our legal and factual arguments that we make on your behalf. Leave means asking the judge to hear our case. If the judge refuses to hear the case, then that ends the judicial review.
- Oral Arguments: Second, we argue the case in front of a judge against a lawyer that represents IRCC.
- Re-determination: If the judge agrees with our side then the judicial review is allowed. Winning a judicial review doesn’t mean the judge approves your immigration application. Instead the decision is returned to IRCC where a new immigration officer evaluates the application, with instructions from the judge. The instructions from the judge will say that the previous decision was flawed. The new immigration officer technically has the power to refuse the immigration application again for different reasons, but in the vast majority of cases the immigration application will be approved.
Settlement with IRCC
The single greatest cost and time saving process for our clients is settlement.
Settlement involves reaching out to the lawyer on the other side and presenting a strong case as early as possible. As part of your judicial review application we will submit a several page settlement proposal to the lawyer on the other side in order to secure settlement as early as possible.
If the lawyer on the other side agrees with our position, they will offer to settle the case instead of spending the time, money and energy necessary to argue the case in Federal Court.
As part of our professional fee we will provide strong settlement offers on two separate occasions during the Leave stage. This helps ensure that our cases are settled as fast as possible, with minimal cost to the client.
Most of our cases settle at the Leave stage.
Time Limits
There are strict time limits for starting a judicial review. If the decision was made inside of Canada, the eligibility window to file is 15-days after receiving a negative decision. If the decision was made outside of Canada, it is 60-days.
The Costs of a Judicial Review
Our professional fees are broken down into stages. Since we always look to settle a case as early as possible, we only collect the fees for one stage at a time.
For a breakdown of our fees, please see below:
- Leave Part One: This involves submitting the necessary paperwork to start the Judicial Review in Federal Court. We will also receive and analyze the immigration officer’s reasons for refusing the immigration application. Our firm will draft a settlement offer to the lawyer representing IRCC which contains legal and factual arguments in support of settling the case. We will negotiate over the phone with the lawyer on the other side. The majority of our cases settle at stage one of Leave. The professional fee for stage one is $4,000 plus a court filing fee of $50.
- Leave Part Two: If IRCC’s lawyer refuses to settle then we need to prepare and submit an application record. This is where we outline our full factual and legal arguments on your behalf. These arguments are more technical in nature, using case law and this is a much longer submission. IRCC’s lawyer will then respond with their own arguments. Once all the arguments are reviewed by both parties, our firm will again make efforts to negotiate a settlement. The professional fee for stage two is $5,000.
- Oral Arguments: If there is no settlement and if leave is granted, and the judge agrees to hear our case, then Sonia will present oral arguments in Federal Court. The professional fee to appear in Federal Court is $2,500.
- Redetermination: If a case is settled at any stage or if we go through the whole court process and win, then the application is sent back to an immigration officer for redetermination. We will have the opportunity to present new, written submissions and new evidence to IRCC at this stage to update the application. We can use this opportunity to present additional documents or address any weak points in the original application. These written submissions to IRCC will be different than the submissions for the judicial review process. The written submissions for the Judicial Review process centers around how IRCC made an error in judgement or assessment on the original application. The submissions to IRCC after winning settlement or a Judicial Review is to present explanation and documents to prove why a person is eligible for that application. Additional submissions are not required in every application. If nothing has substantially changed since the time of submitting the original application, additional submissions may not be necessary. The profession fee for additional submissions is $2,500.
The most common (and desired) outcome is settlement ($4,000), with the opportunity to present IRCC with updated written submissions and evidentiary documents to consider ($2,500) in the Re-determination.
