Knowledge on country conditions is a part of the expertise of the tribunal. The IRB is constantly seeking innovative ways to enhance its specialized knowledge of country conditions and to promote consistency in decision making. The Board is therefore continually developing tools, such as the Chairperson's Guidelines and commentaries on legal and procedural issues, that foster consistency and assist decision makers. A variable and unpredictable caseload is another characteristic of the immigration and refugee environment. Social and political changes in source countries can generate sudden shifts in the number of claims referred to the Board.
Refugee claims from the same country often raise issues that recur in many cases.
A lead case has two objectives. A lead case also gives focus to the principal legal issues that arise from those facts. This is consistent with the role of the Board's Refugee Division, which acts as an expert tribunal having specialised knowledge of human rights conditions in countries from whose nationals the Board receives claims. The use of lead cases does not infringe on the independence of Board decision makers. Neither the evidence presented in lead cases, nor the decisions reached in those cases, are binding on subsequent panels.