Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Mr. Mir Kamal sought an extension of time to file an application for judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) decision dated January 14, 2025, which dismissed his application as abandoned.
• Central to the motion was whether Kamal could demonstrate "apparent grounds for relief" and that no substantial prejudice would result from the delay, as required under s. 5(2) of the Judicial Review Procedure Act (JRPA).
• Kamal alleged that the HRTO wrongly found he had failed to respond to its request for additional submissions, asserting he had submitted 26 pages of evidence on the same day.
• His materials — including a 101-page motion record — were found to be largely irrelevant to the judicial review, with insufficient evidence to establish the HRTO's decision was unreasonable.
• No explanation was provided for the approximately nine-month delay between the HRTO's decision and Kamal's attempt to commence judicial review proceedings.
• Costs were requested by the respondent but could not be ordered, as no bill of costs or costs outline was filed as required by the Consolidated Practice Direction for Divisional Court Proceedings.

Facts of the case

Mir Kamal, a self-represented paralegal licensed in Ontario since 2008 after failing to obtain accreditation as a lawyer, has a lengthy history of disputes with the Law Society of Ontario (LSO). In 2015, the LSO launched an investigation into alleged misleading advertising by Kamal, which led to disciplinary proceedings. The Law Society Tribunal found in 2018 that Kamal had engaged in professional misconduct, suspended his licence for 30 days, and ordered him to pay costs of $7,500.00. An appeal to the Law Society Tribunal Appeal Division was dismissed, resulting in a further costs award of $10,000.00 against him. A subsequent appeal to the Divisional Court was not pursued and was eventually dismissed as abandoned.

In 2019, Kamal commenced a Small Claims Court action against the LSO seeking damages arising from the disciplinary proceedings. In 2021, the parties reached a settlement, which included Kamal signing a Full and Final Release in relation to all claims, losses, and demands for damages arising from the LSO investigation and disciplinary proceedings. The action was dismissed on consent without costs. Kamal did not pay the costs from the disciplinary proceedings, and his paralegal licence was suspended in 2023 as a result. He responded by filing another Small Claims Court claim for $25,000.00 in damages, which was struck for disclosing no reasonable cause of action. He then commenced a Superior Court action claiming $1,000,000.00 in damages related to the licence suspension, which was later settled.

Also in 2023, Kamal commenced proceedings before the HRTO against the LSO, seeking relief that included damages of $210,000.00 and reinstatement of his licence. The HRTO sent Kamal a request for additional submissions concerning a potential jurisdictional issue with his application. The exact date of that request and its deadline are unclear from the record. The HRTO's decision states the request was sent to the email address Kamal had provided and was not returned as undeliverable. When no submissions were received by the deadline, the HRTO dismissed the application as abandoned on January 14, 2025. Kamal's Notice of Application for Judicial Review is dated October 30, 2025, with affidavits of service sworn November 25, 2025 — approximately nine months after the HRTO's decision. Upon learning his application was out of time, Kamal brought this motion to extend the filing deadline.

Statutory framework

The applicable provision is s. 5(1) of the Judicial Review Procedure Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. J.1 (JRPA), which requires that an application for judicial review be brought within 30 days of the decision under review. Section 5(2) grants the court discretion to extend that time if satisfied that there are apparent grounds for relief and that no substantial prejudice or hardship will result to any person affected by the delay.

Court's reasoning and analysis

To succeed on judicial review of the HRTO's decision, Kamal would need to establish that the decision was unreasonable, applying the standard set out in Ontario (Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care) v. Assn. of Ontario Midwives, 2022 ONCA 458. The court reviewed Kamal's 101-page motion record and found that most of it had no apparent relevance to the judicial review application. The only materials addressing the reasonableness of the HRTO's decision were Kamal's affidavit — which asserted that the HRTO wrongly concluded he had not responded to its inquiry — and the Notice of Application, which claimed he had provided 26 pages of evidence on the same day the HRTO's request was received. The court found this insufficient to establish that the HRTO's decision was unreasonable or that there were "apparent grounds for relief" under s. 5(2) of the JRPA.

The court also noted that although s. 5(2) does not strictly require an explanation for the delay, the absence of any explanation for the approximately nine-month gap before Kamal attempted to commence judicial review was a relevant consideration, given that judicial review is an equitable and discretionary remedy. In support of this reasoning, the court referenced Unifor and its Local 303 v. Scepter Canada Inc., 2022 ONSC 5683 (Div. Ct.), and Belyavsky v. Walsh, 2022 ONSC 3135 (Div. Ct.).

Ruling and outcome

The motion was dismissed. The Law Society of Ontario, as the successful responding party, requested costs; however, no costs order was made because no bill of costs or costs outline had been filed as required by paragraph 52(c)(iii) of the Consolidated Practice Direction for Divisional Court Proceedings. Accordingly, no monetary amount was awarded to either party.