  A fractional quasiparticle charge is a manifestation of strong interactions
in the fractional quantum Hall effect. Nevertheless, shot noise of
quasiparticles is well described by a formula, derived for noninteracting
charges. We explain the success of that formula by proving that in the limits
of strong and weak backscattering it holds irrespectively of microscopic
details in weakly and strongly interacting systems alike. The derivation relies
only on principles of statistical mechanics. We also derive an approximate
model-independent formula for shot noise in the regime of intermediate
backscattering. The equation is numerically close to the standard
`noninteracting' fitting formula but suggests a different physical
interpretation of the experimental results. We verify our theoretical
predictions with a shot noise experiment at the filling factor $3/5$.
