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Breaking Australian immigration news brought to you by Migration Alliance and associated bloggers.
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Amalgamation of tribunals: AAT, MRT-RRT, SSAT and CRB
The following information has been received by Migration Alliance from Kay Ransome:
Dear Community Liaison network members
On 13 May 2013 as part of the Federal Budget 2014-15 the Government announced that the Migration Review Tribunal and Refugee Review Tribunal would be amalgamated with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the Social Security Appeals Tribunal and the Classification Review Board. The amalgamation is planned to take effect on 1 July 2015. The amalgamation is planned to take effect on 1 July 2015 and the tribunals will fall under the portfolio of the Attorney General’s Department.
The amalgamation is part of the Government’s overall aim to attain greater efficiencies in the Australian Public Service and to provide a single body for external merits review. The overall objective of providing merits review that is fair, just, economical, informal and quick will remain. The reforms are expected to generate efficiencies and savings through shared financial, human resources, information technology and governance arrangements.
During this time of change, the tribunals will operate business as usual and will continue to provide independent, expert review of migration and refugee decisions that is efficient and accessible.
For further information, please see the Attorney General’s Media release on the amalgamation.
Kind regards
Kay Ransome
Principal Member
Comments
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Thursday, 15 May 2014I have appeared before the AAT over the years as a non-lawyer and have never felt unwelcome or frowned upon. The last time I appeared was last week. the difference in the way the Tribunals are run is the main issue with the amalgamation - it remains to be seen if the three will remain separate entities within the overall structures and whether the MRT / RRT will retain their inherent non-adversarial nature.
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Thursday, 15 May 2014
I think this is a good reform. There seemed to be no logic in some migration appeals being available to AAT whilst others were only submissable to MRT. The AAT was always a higher platform so let's hope they don't sink to the lowest denominator.
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Saturday, 17 May 2014
Wait for the next reform in few years from 07/2015
It never stops -
Tuesday, 17 June 2014
how is it that UK born persons can become the prime minister of Australia?....
This country deserves it....
Immigration blog
The good news (?) - the AAT operates with the decision maker being truly neutral, so there's a reasonable adversarial advocacy system in place where the government makes their claims, the applicant makes their claims, and a neutral decision maker weighs them up. Each side exchanges evidence with each other before the hearing, and it's a balanced situation. However it will be interesting to see how they approach conciliation and mediation strategy with migration cases (!).
The bad news: While the practice guidelines say that some applicants "may be represented by migration agents", in reality I've heard that the AAT frowns on representation by agents who are not lawyers. Given that migration agents have a primary role in MRT and RRT hearings, it will be interesting to see exactly what rights and privileges a migration agent will have at the AAT when it incorporates the roles of the MRT and RRT. Also will be interesting to see if the Ministerial Intervention process is altered (or curtailed) at the same time the tribunal process is incorporated...