The tribunals at a glance

The Migration Review Tribunal (the MRT) and the Refugee Review Tribunal (the RRT) are established under the Migration Act 1958. The tribunals’ jurisdictions, powers and procedures are set out in the Migration Act and in the Migration Regulations 1994.

Principal Member Denis O’Brien
Registrar Rhys Jones (Acting)

	MRT	RRT	MRT and RRT
Established	1999	1993
Cases lodged	8,332	2,271	10,603
Cases decided	7,580	2,157	9,737
Cases on hand	7,048	738	7,786
% of primary decisions set aside	45%	24%	40%
% of primary decisions affirmed	36%	71%	44%
% of cases withdrawn or otherwise resolved	19%	5%	16%
Average time taken to decide a case (weeks)	40	14
% of decided cases where applicant represented	69%	55%	66%
Hearings arranged	6,569	2,954	9,523
% of decided cases where hearing held	56%	75%	60%
% of hearings where interpreter was required	61%	86%	67%
Languages and dialects			90
% of decisions taken to judicial review	3%	24%
% of decisions set aside on judicial review	34%	10%
Members			94
Staff			272
Cost			$40.2m

Unless otherwise indicated, all information as at 30 June 2010 for the 2009–10 financial year.

Statistics

All statistics used in this report are of ‘cases’. Multiple applications for review are counted as a single case where the legislation provides that the applications for review can be combined, usually where members of a family unit have applied for the grant of visas at the same time.