Judicial review of a citizenship decision: How to prepare the certified tribunal record

• Do not mark or number any documents on the file. Instead, make a copy of all the required documents in the file. These will serve as the "master copy" of the CTR.
• Sort the documents. The first page will be the cover letter, followed by the applicant's citizenship application, the judge's or decision-maker’s decision form or notes, the refusal letter, the delivery manifest, then all the remaining supporting documents in the file in chronological order.
• The master copy must include all material relevant to both the assessment of the application and the decision for citizenship (including electronic copies if relevant to the case as well as the physical contents from the applicant's file).
• The master copy must not include any material that post-dates the citizenship decision.
• The master copy must not include the e-mail memorandum from the Litigation Management Unit (BCL).
• Review the master copy to ensure that it does not contain any information that should not be disclosed.

• Fully exempted pages of the CTR are to be photocopied blank (only the page number will be written in the upper right-hand corner of the blank page). The blank page must be inserted in the same place in the CTR where the exempted document would have been.
• For pages containing partial exemptions (where only parts of the page are to be exempted) the exempted portions must be whited-out.
• Ensure that the whited-out sections completely obscure the text, and place parentheses "()" at the beginning and end of the whited-out areas, to indicate that text was removed from the document in that space.
• Fully and partially exempted pages must be referred to in the certification cover letter, and must include the reasons for the objection to the release of the information as per the instructions sent by the BCL.

Learn more on documents to be excluded from the CTR.

• Number the pages of the master copy in the upper right-hand corner of each page.
• The cover letter must be on top, and must not be numbered. Page one will be the client's application. All other pages must be numbered, including any blank exempted pages. Care should be taken not to write too close to the corner of the page, since that part of the page could be cut off when the pages are photocopied.
• When the master copy is ready, and has been numbered, make the required number of copies of the entire master copy. The number of copies to be made will depend on the applicant's request. For judicial review initiated by the Minister, four copies of the CTR must be made.
• Certify the copies of the CTR by binding all the pages securely using a round head brass fastener, and including the cover letter as the first page of the CTR.
• Keep the complete original master copy that was used to make the CTR copies in the applicant's file.

If the applicant requests, within 20 days from the date that the local CIC office received the copy of the Notice of application from the BCL, the local CIC office distributes certified copies of the complete CTR including the cover letter to:

• the Federal Court;
• the applicant, or the applicant's counsel;
• the Department of Justice, Litigation; and
• the BCL.

Please note that the copy for the BCL does not have to be certified.

If the applicant makes no such request, the local CIC office sends only a copy of the CTR (not certified) to the Department of Justice and the BCL.