CCPR/C/116/D/2327/2014 6.19 The State party also notes the author’s claim that she “has never been afforded a fair opportunity to contest the merits of her negative [Refugee Protection Division] decision” and her criticism of the Canadian immigration and protection system. The State party considers that it is not within the scope of review of the Committee to consider the Canadian refugee protection system in general, but only to examine whether, in the present case, the State party complied with its obligations under the Covenant. Moreover, her criticisms are not valid, for several reasons. First, the leave requirement has been deemed constitutional by the Federal Court of Appeal of Canada. An applicant must show that there is a “fairly arguable case” or a “serious question to be determined” by way of judicial review. Leave applications are thoroughly reviewed by a judge of the Federal Court on the basis of written submissions from both the author and the Government. 6.20 Second, the author’s complaint that leave applications are only granted in 10 per cent of cases is based on statistics from 2006 compiled by the Canadian Council for Refugees. The statistics compiled by the Federal Court itself, using data for the 2013 calendar year, indicate that out of 5,496 applications for leave for judicial review in the refugee context that were decided in that period, 685 applications were granted. In other words, the grant rate was 12.5 per cent. These statistics are not indicative of a lack of vigilance by the Federal Court but rather of a focus of its resources, which are not unlimited, on the decisions that satisfy the established test for leave. This triage of cases is made necessary by the high volume of leave applications filed each year. 6.21 Third, the current system of judicial review by the Federal Court does provide for “judicial review of the merits” of a Refugee Protection Division decision, as it allows for review of both the law and the facts. As in many legal systems around the world, judicial review in Canada is best characterized as judicial supervision of administrative decisionmaking. For reasons of expertise, accessibility and efficiency, a specialized administrative tribunal is often the best primary decision maker for a particular matter. The Refugee Protection Division is a division of the Immigration and Refugee Board, an independent and quasi-judicial tribunal. Board members hear immigration and refugee matters exclusively, receive specialized training in this area of the law, and stay informed and develop expertise in country conditions and events of alleged persecution or other human rights violations. They have access to the Board’s internationally recognized research programme which produces, among other research, a National Documentation Package for every country for which there is a claim for refugee protection. While Board members are best situated to be the primary decision makers, the function of judicial review is to ensure the legality, the reasonableness and the fairness of the administrative decision-making process and its outcomes. The Federal Court reviews the Board’s decisions for factual errors or errors involving both facts and law, generally on a standard of reasonableness in deference to the tribunal’s expertise. However, the Court may also review the correctness of any aspect of the tribunal’s decision that involves questions of law of central importance to the legal system as a whole and outside the tribunal’s expertise. Judicial review could not effectively function if each review were a de novo hearing, with the reviewing court acting as a second trier of fact that shows no deference to the administrative decision maker, given that a properly functioning judicial system conducting judicial and appellate reviews cannot retry the same case at multiple levels of court. This approach would simply not be feasible in any administrative system. 6.22 Fourth, the author’s complaints about the judicial review process are unsubstantiated. The Refugee Protection Division provided careful reasoning for its determination that the author’s allegations of persecution are untrue. Finally, concerning the author’s criticisms of recent changes to the PRRA and H&C processes, the State party considers that these allegations are moot because the author has been eligible to use these processes since 15 March 2014. In addition, the legislative changes of which the author complains were made in 2010 for the purposes of streamlining Canada’s immigration and 10