Administrative Appeals Tribunal ‘hiding’ migrant and refugee visa decisions

THE Administrative Appeals Tribunal admits only a tiny number of migrant and refugee visa decisions are made public, with all decisions involving Iranians staying confidential.

Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton. Picture: AAP

THE Administrative Appeals Tribunal is hiding from public scrutiny by only publishing a tiny number of the thousands of visa decisions it makes.

It has refused to answer questions from the Herald Sun about how many of its decisions are made public.

But AAT registrar Sian Leathem had to admit under questioning at a recent Senate hearing that a whopping 87.5 per cent of its decisions on visas were not published last year.

“In the Migration & Refugee Division in 2015-16, there were 2009 decisions that were published — which is 12.5 per cent of all their written decisions,” she told the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee members.

Ms Leathem also admitted protection visa decisions relating to Iranians always remained secret.

She was questioned during the Senate hearing about a recent Herald Sun article which revealed six Iranian boat people were caught holidaying in their homeland after lying on their visa applications about fearing for their lives if they had to return there.

The article revealed a delegate for Immigration Minister Peter Dutton attempted to kick out the Iranians, but the AAT overturned the deportation decisions and allowed all six fake refugees to stay in Australia.

LNP Senator Barry O'Sullivan. Picture: Michael Ross

Ms Leathem said that since July 2014 the AAT has overturned 60 decisions to cancel the visas of protection or refugee visa holders and instead allowed the applicants to stay in Australia against the wishes of Mr Dutton’s delegates.

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The reasons for the AAT decisions to save the six Iranians from deportation remain confidential.

“Tribunal decisions about protection matters involving applicants from Iran are not published and are not publicly available,” Ms Leathem told the Senate committee members.

“This practice has been in place since at least 2011, following a request made to former migration and refugee tribunals by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade not to publish information relating to Iran that may jeopardise bilateral and other government interests.”

Liberal National Party Senator and former police officer Barry O’Sullivan said he was astonished so few AAT visa decisions were made public.

He pointed out to Ms Leathem that one of the stated aims of the AAT charter was to provide a review process that promoted public trust and confidence in the decision-making of the Tribunal.

“That can only be achieved if an observer has the capacity to determine and develop their own confidence in the decision-making of the tribunal,” Senator O’Sullivan told Ms Leathem.

“That cannot happen without transparency.

“Would you accept Ms Leathem that this is a whole-of organisation problem with respect to the question of transparency?”

Ms Leathem admitted the decision publishing practice in other AAT divisions was “sounder on a transparency basis” than in the Migration & Refugee Division.

THE HERALD SUN QUESTIONS THE AAT REFUSED TO ANSWER

• Why did AAT senior member Miriam Holmes ask AAT executive officer Anna Piwonski in October last year how she could arrange to have one of her decisions (decision 1605532 relating to Neal Ciaran Gildea) removed from the Austlii* website?

• Why was that decision later removed from Austlii?

• Ms Holmes told Ms Piwonski she wanted the decision taken down because it contained an error and she believed it was not desirable to keep it on Austlii because doing so could damage her reputation and that of the AAT. Does the AAT consider damaging a member’s reputation is a sufficiently good reason to remove a decision from Austlii? If so, why?

• Have there been any other cases in which AAT decisions have been taken down from Austlii at the request of an AAT member? If so, for what reason?

• Who in the AAT decides which cases go on Austlii and which don’t?

• What criteria are applied when deciding whether or not to put a decision on the Austlii website?

• Are you able to tell us what percentage of AAT decisions are published on the Austlii website?

• In the case Ms Holmes had removed from Austlii (decision 1605532 relating to Neal Ciaran Gildea), she accepted the applicant’s excuse that he failed to apply for a new visa before his old one expired because he was called to Sydney to meet urgent work commitments at the same time as being heavily involved in discussions with his builder regarding construction of a new family home. Does the AAT consider these excuses meet the “factors beyond control” argument?

• Does the AAT support Ms Holmes’ decision to cover up her decision in relation to Mr Gildea by getting it removed from Austlii?

• If all Ms Holmes wanted to do was correct a mistake in the Gildea decision, why didn’t she just contact Austlii to correct the mistake, rather than take down the whole decision?

*Austlii is the publicly accessible website used by courts and other judicial bodies to publish sentences and other legal decisions

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