The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada will step back and begin listening to asylum applications as it did before the pandemic, with judges, lawyers, refugees and interpreters in closed hearing rooms.
After months of consultation, the IRB said Thursday that it would begin the transition to its “pre-COVID model” for refugee hearings, all parties to the same hearing rooms starting September 14.
This resolution contradicts a board of the immigration segment of the Canadian Bar Association, whose 1,200 members had requested that virtual hearings be the default choice due to fitness issues.
“The IRB reaction has failed,” said Lina Anani, Toronto’s immigration attorney. “They said they were adding plexiglass. The virus is suspended in the air and the plexiglass can paint when you pass to a grocery store. Arrangement… We’re in a little enclosed space. In addition to a high-risk activity, it speaks frequently and lasts for hours. »
As of March 31, the IRB had a backing of 90,267 shelter applications to process.
The IRB ended all hearings in March, has slowly resumed its in-person hearings since July, first in Vancouver and in its offices in the rest of the country in early August. Since 3 August, he said, 880 refugee hearings have been scheduled, 62 of them via videoconference.
According to the existing protocol, judges and interpreters worked off-site or in rooms other than those of the applicants, appellants and their lawyers to practice social estrangement. However, applicants and lawyers are asked to remove the mask during oral presentations and statements.
Virtual audiences and the so-called “paper record review”, a document-only claim, were also carried out at capacity.
“We are in the midst of the ultimate ambitious transformation of our business style in its 30-year history,” President Richard Wex said in his most recent operational updates, which were online.
“We have guided ourselves in the dual objective of protecting the fitness and protection of all who come before the IRB and ensuring that justice is done, adding up to vulnerable populations that have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
With the full resumption of in-person hearings, the IRB stated that plexiglass barriers were installed in its larger hearing rooms as an additional layer of coverage in addition to physical distance and the requirement that everyone wear a mask in the audience. (From now on, participants who wish to wear a mask in their testimonial or presentation can do so.)
He said the percentage of air in the ventilation formula had been higher in the IRB facility and that high-quality filters were being used. Particular attention is also paid to the ventilation maintenance programs of the assembly.
In its submission to this month’s IRB, the Law Society raised considerations of the threat of EXPOSURE to COVID-19 for applicants and lawyers visiting IRB offices, public elevators, and confinement in small rooms for long periods of time.
“The installation of plexiglass and the temperature-taking will not pose those threats,” said Ravi Jain, president of the bar’s immigration division. “A vaccine, the only effective approach to mitigating the threat of injury, will not be available for public distribution for the foreseeable future.”
Last week, more than 250 attorneys and advocacy teams asked the IRB to avoid scheduling face-to-face and virtual hearings until their aptitude and protection considerations are resolved, adding logistics for applicants to participate in remote hearings.
“I’ve been appearing on the board of directors (of the Toronto office) for 20 years. Ventilation is a huge challenge there. We need to open the door, but for reasons of confidentiality, we cannot leave the door open for air into the room,” said attorney Preevanda Sapru, who led the crusade with other colleagues.
“We want to be in a position with Microsoft Teams for virtual auditions. I agree, but my clients don’t have Microsoft or the Internet. And we have a small office. There’s no way to make a social estrangement. What has been done to ensure that the applicant has a safe space? »
To date, Sapru said, 15 of his clients have refused to be scheduled for a face-to-face hearing for technical and security reasons, eager to get a hearing and move on.
“Many customers at the refugee bar are marginalized. They do not have access to a computer or any kind of video conferencing system. Some of them don’t have a smartphone,” said lawyer Nastaran Roushan, who in the past has had clients who have expressed considerations about in-person hearings.
“Forcing them to audition is hardly an option, especially when a language barrier is loaded. The connection between an interpreter and one or more applicants is almost a logistical nightmare.”
IRB spokeswoman Line-Alice Guibert-Wolff said detailed fitness and council protection protocols had been reviewed through the Canadian Public Health Agency.
To further reduce the need for face-to-face hearings, he said, the commission has also begun to hold more virtual hearings and less complex shelter requests through a paper review of the instances, so that some well-documented instances can be performed without a listener.
The IRB also has arrangements that would allow applicants and appellants to use computers at IRB facilities to participate in virtual hearings while their attorneys attend proceedings remotely.
“We are convinced that they face the considerations expressed through the organization of lawyers and lawyers,” Guibert-Wolff said.
Nicholas Keung is a Toronto-based reporter covering immigration for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @nkeung