Applying for judicial review

Important: You need to apply for judicial review within 60 days of being notified about the decision made. If you apply any later, you will need to explain in your affidavit why the Court should let you apply late. As it’s very hard to get the Court to accept late applications, it’s important to get your application in on time.

The steps for applying for judicial review are:

1. Prepare your application documents and give them to the Supreme Court
2. Serve the documents on the Defendant
3. The Defendant can respond to your documents
4. Go to the Directions Hearing
5. Go to the Hearing
6. Decision

Below is more information on each step.

1. Prepare your application documents and give them to the Supreme Court

• To start your application, you need to file these documents on RedCrest (the Supreme Court’s website for filing documents):
  • Originating Motion for Judicial Review (Form 5G)
  • Affidavit (explaining the facts from your perspective) – attaching any documents you want to rely on, like a letter from Corrections or statement of reasons
  • Proper Basis Certification
  • Overarching Obligations Certification and
  • Application for Waiver of Court Fees.
• Within seven days of filing your first application documents, you need to submit these documents on Redcrest:
  • A completed Summons (with your Directions Hearing date on it) and
  • Your Supreme Court Notice
  • You can complete these documents by:
    • 1. Drafting a Summons (Form 6A – leave the part about the directions hearing date blank)
    • 2. Completing a Judicial Review and Appeals List hearing date information form
    • 3. Emailing these documents to the Supreme Court email that’s on the Summons form
    • 4. Within two business days you should get your Supreme Court Notice that includes the date of your Directions Hearing
• The Supreme Court will look at the documents you have filed and let you know if you need to make any changes.

2. Serve the documents on the Defendant

• Once your documents have been approved by the Supreme Court, you or your lawyer will get copies stamped with the Court’s seal (these are called sealed documents).
• As soon as possible, you must then serve these sealed documents on the Defendant (the person who made the decision you want reviewed) and the prison:
  1. Originating Motion
  2. Affidavit and
  3. Summons.
• To serve the documents, you or your lawyer will need to give the Defendant and the prison a physical copy.

3. The Defendant can respond to your documents

• The Defendant can choose whether to:
  • Respond to your documents or
  • Do nothing and not respond.
• If the Defendant decides to respond to your documents, they have to serve any documents about their response on you or your lawyer.

4. Go to the Directions Hearing

• A Directions Hearing is a short hearing at the Supreme Court where a Judge tells both sides what they need to do to prepare for the hearing (like what documents need to be prepared and filed, and when).
• The Judge will usually also say when your hearing will be.
• Both sides are expected to attend the Directions Hearing. You can attend by video-link – let the court or your lawyer know you need this so it can be set up.
• If you can’t attend because of an emergency, let the Court know as soon as possible.

5. Hearing

• This is when you will present your case to the Judge.
• You will get the chance to make your submissions (arguments) first. Then the Defendant will have a chance to make their arguments.
• The Judge will usually focus on the documents that have been filed in the case, rather than witnesses like a criminal case. They will probably ask questions and hear from both sides at different times throughout the hearing.

6. Decision

• The Judge will not usually give their final decision (called a judgment) on the day of the hearing – they will take time to think about it and write it out.
• Depending on how complicated your case is, the Judge will usually give their decision a few weeks or months after the hearing.
• You should be invited to court to hear the decision of the Judge. You can also ask for a paper copy of the decision to be sent to you.

To find out what can happen from judicial review, use the link on the left side of this page.