CAT/C/57/D/529/2012 tribunal that involves issues of law that are of central importance to the legal system as a whole and outside the Board’s expertise.15 6.5 The State party specified that judicial review of a Refugee Protection Division decision is available with leave from the Federal Court. The Federal Court’s test for granting leave to apply for judicial review of Division decisions is whether there is a “fairly arguable case” or a “serious question to be determined”.16 Leave applications are thoroughly reviewed by a judge of the Federal Court on the basis of written submissions from the applicant and the Government. Decisions are communicated to applicants through a signed judicial order, typically without reasons. The fact that leave applications are often decided on the basis of written submissions does not mean that the review process is unfair. Judges of the Federal Court consider each leave application on the basis of the tribunal record and the written submissions made by the parties. A hearing does not have to be an oral hearing in order to be fair and to comply with the rules of natural justice. If the written submissions disclose a fairly arguable case for judicial review, leave is granted and the case is assigned to a different justice for an oral hearing on the merits of the judicial review application. The existence of the leave requirement in no way undermines the effectiveness of judicial review as a remedial avenue. 6.6 The State party referred to the statistics compiled by the Federal Court for the 2012 calendar year17 — out of 6,396 applications for leave to appeal refugee decisions that were handed down in that period, 911 were granted, which constituted a grant rate of 14.2 per cent. These statistics are not indicative of a lack of vigilance by the Federal Court but rather of a focus of its resources to 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. The acceptance rate for leave applications is not unduly low, given the quality of the decision-making at first instance within the Canadian system. 6.7 The State party reiterated that it was not the role of the Committee to consider its immigration and refugee protection system, including the Federal Court review, in the abstract, but to consider only whether the system has, in some specific way, failed to protect the Convention rights of the complainant.18 Insofar as any of the complainant’s allegations about the deficiencies in the judicial review system may have had a direct bearing on the assessment of the complainant’s claim for protection, which has been denied, they could and should have been raised first before the Federal Court itself and, on appeal with leave, to the Supreme Court. The basic admissibility requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies exists to ensure that the substance of any allegation submitted to the Committee is first raised before the domestic courts. Complainants cannot raise issues for the first time before the Committee; if they do so, such allegations are inadmissible. 19 15 16 17 18 19 14 The jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada on this point provided guidance for judicial review by all Canadian courts. See its explanation of “reasonableness” and “correctness” standards of review in Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick, 2008 SCC 9, para. 49, available at www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2008/2008scc9/2008scc9.html.. See Bains v. Minister of Employment and Immigration (1990), 109 N.R. 239 (Fed. C.A.); and Wu v. Minister of Employment and Immigration, [1989] 2 F.C. 175 (T.D.). See Federal Court of Canada, “Statistics”, Archived Content, Activity Summary – January 1 to December 31, 2012, available at http://cas-cdc-www02.cas-satj.gc.ca/portal/page/portal/fc_cf_en/ Statistics/Statistics_dec12.. See for example communication No. 15/1994, Khan v. Canada, decision adopted on 15 November 1994, para. 12.1. See Human Rights Committee, communication No. 1494/2006, Chadzjian v. Netherlands, decision adopted on 22 July 2008, para. 8.3.