The tribunals at a glance : MRT – RRT Annual Report 2012

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

Unless otherwise indicated, all information in this report is as at 30 June 2013 for the 2012-13 financial year. Table 1 provides an overview of the tribunals’ work program.

Principal Member Ms Kay Ransome Registrar Mr Colin Plowman

Table 1 – The tribunals at a glance
	MRT	RRT	MRT and RRT
Established	1999	1993
Cases on hand at 1 July 2012	16,863	1,501	18,364
Cases lodged	16,164	4,229	20,393
Cases decided	15,590	3,757	19,347
Cases on hand at 30 June 2013	17,437	1,973	19,410
% of primary decisions set-aside	29%	37%	30%
% of primary decisions affirmed	46%	59%	48%
% of cases withdrawn or otherwise resolved	25%	5%	21%
Average time taken to decide a case (weeks)	58	23	-
% of decided cases where applicant was represented	62%	72%	64%
Hearings arranged	11,281	5,296	16,577
% of decided cases where hearing was held	41%	81%	50%
% of held hearings where interpreter was required	56%	89%	68%
Languages and dialects of interpreters	-	-	94
% of decisions taken to judicial review	4%	20%	7%
Decisions set-aside on judicial review as % of decisions made	0.1%	0.7%	0.2%
Members			144
Staff			365
Cost			$72.5 million

Table 2 provides an overview of the Independent Protection Assessment Office’s caseload. The Office was transferred from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to the tribunals as a machinery of government change on 1 July 2012.

Table 2 – Independent protecton assessment caseload
	IPAO
Cases on hand at 1 July 2012	702
% of recommendations that a protection obligation exists	68%
% of recommendations that no protection obligation exists	32%
Caseload finalised	17 December 2012

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 visas together.

Some percentages do not add to 100% due to rounding.

The tribunals decided 19,347 cases during the year and received 20,393 applications