"Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done." R v Sussex Justices, Ex parte McCarthy [1924]. This famous principle actually allows for judicial decisions to be overturned if there is a mere appearance of bias.

With Federal Court Judge Alexander "Sandy" Street accused of ‘apprehended bias’ after having rejected over 252 appeals of the 254 migration cases he considered over a period of six months, applicants are presenting these statistics to show that those seeking a judicial review of migration decisions had virtually no chance of succeeding in Judge Street's court.

Even the editor of the Federal Court Reports, Victor Kline, has apparently sworn an affidavit for the Full Federal Court alleging that Judge Street found in favour of the Immigration Minister in virtually every case he heard between January and June this year, according to a report on the ABC.

“According to the statistics, the judge dismissed a large number of cases at the first court date, which is usually set aside for laying down a timetable for gathering evidence and scheduling a hearing,” noted the ABC report.

Monash University law professor Matthew Groves told the ABC that such analysis of an individual judge's rulings was rarely seen in Australian courts.

"The very fact that they were collected is unusual, and the stats themselves are quite unusual because they show that for migration hearings, essentially you've got no prospect of succeeding in front of this particular judge," Professor Groves said.

Judge Street was appointed to the Federal Circuit Court in late December last year by Commonwealth Attorney-General George Brandis. The judge hails from the well-known Street legal family, which has produced three NSW chief justices.

The appointment came despite Judge Street being the subject of media attention in the year prior to his appointment when it was revealed he was carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and faced possible bankruptcy.

Judges of the Full Federal Court considering appeals from Judge Street’s decisions have strongly criticised some of his decisions. In one case, the Full Federal Court took a dim view of the judge's approach ruling that he had erred in summarily dismissing proceedings at the first court mention date and where the applicant wished to file further material.

"Serious issues relating to the procedural fairness of proceedings must arise in circumstances such as the present, in which an unrepresented applicant whose primary language is not English ... is called on, without notice, to mount arguments resisting the summary dismissal of his application," judges Mansfield, Tracey and Mortimer said.

"These circumstances, or ones similar to them, should not occur again."