Senate Estimates: Explosion of migration appeals causes federal court backlog

There has been an explosion of migration appeals over the past two years that is causing an increasing backlog of cases and delay in the federal courts.

Soden said the “great majority” of migration appeals were unsuccessful.

There has been an explosion of migration appeals over the past two years that is causing an increasing backlog of cases and delay in the federal courts.

In the Federal Court, migration appeals are on track to increase 50 per cent this year.

This comes after a 34 per cent jump in migration appeals in 2017-18 to 1269 appeals, up from 944 appeals the previous year. This contributed to a 36 per cent blowout in the court’s backlog of migration cases.

Federal Court chief executive and principal registrar Warwick Soden told senate estimates today the court’s migration numbers for this financial year were already 44 per cent higher than the first quarter of last year.

He said the “great majority” of migration appeals (less than 1 per cent of which were brought by the government) were unsuccessful.

The lower-level Federal Circuit Court is also struggling to keep up with its migration caseload. Its current backlog of migration appeals has blown out to 7607 cases, its chief executive and principal registrar Stewart Fenwick revealed.

Last year, the court managed to finalise just 3786 migration appeals, but it received 5314 new migration cases. The number of new migration cases was up from 3544 in 2015-16. Its clearance rate for migration cases was just 70 per cent last year, meaning it is continuing to fall behind.

“There are well more than the last year’s filings on hand,” Dr Fenwick told the senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee.

The court’s Chief Judge, Will Alstergren, had been in discussions with the government about securing extra resources to deal with the migration caseload, he said.

Also at senate estimates, Mr Soden revealed the median time to reach a trial in the Family Court had blown out even further, to 19 months. This is up from 11.5 months five years ago, and up from 17 months earlier this year.

The Federal Circuit Court has managed to reduce its median waiting time for a trial to 12 months. This is down from 15 months in January.

Mr Soden said the courts “would dearly like to recruit more human resources” for the family law courts. This included registrars and family consultants to help resolve cases.

He revealed Family Court justice Robert McClelland, a former federal attorney-general, has been charged with the task of consulting with judges about their views on the government’s proposed restructure of the family courts. This will inform a submission from the court to a government inquiry into the changes.