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This post analyses the combined data sets obtained by the Kaldor Centre Data Lab under Freedom of Information, covering protection cases at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) from 1 January 2015 to 18 May 2022.

From 1 January 2015 to 18 May 2022, 26,036 protection visa decisions were made by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT). In 12 per cent of these cases, asylum seekers were granted a visa.

An applicant’s chance of success varied from zero to 89 per cent, depending on which tribunal member they appeared before (for tribunal members who decided over 50 cases). Seventeen of these decision-makers rejected applications in more than 95 per cent of their cases. 

These variations in outcomes may be explained to some degree by the way in which cases are allocated at the AAT. Cases are not allocated randomly, and as such, certain members may be assigned cases with characteristics that have higher or lower chances of success, such as cases from particular countries of origin, or particular claim types within those countries.

Controlling for the country of origin of the applicant and the level of experience of the tribunal member (calculated as the number of years since they were first appointed), the member allocated to a case still has a statistically significant effect on the outcome of that case (χ^2 (38)=674, p<0.0001).

Further, of the 39 tribunal members who decided cases in over 1% of the dataset (over 260 cases), almost half (46%, being 18 tribunal members) made decisions that were significantly inconsistent with those of the average tribunal member, when deciding similar cases. Controlling for the country of origin of the applicant, whether they had legal representation, the level of experience of the member, whether they had legal training, their gender, and the political party appointing the member, an applicant’s chance of success could range from five times more than that of applicants who had their case decided by the mean tribunal member, to 98% lower than the mean, depending on the tribunal member deciding their case.

An applicant’s chance of success also varied depending on their country of origin (for countries with more than 50 applicants). Applicants from Tonga, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia and Nepal were the least successful, being rejected in over 95 per cent of their cases. Meanwhile, applicants from Libya, Afghanistan and Ethiopia, and stateless applicants, had the highest rates of success, being granted a visa in over 60 per cent of their cases.

Success rates also varied significantly within countries. For example, the overall success rate of applicants from Pakistan was 31 per cent. However, an applicant’s chance of success ranges from zero to 91 per cent, depending on the tribunal member they appeared before (for decision-makers who decided more than 20 applications in Pakistan). Again, this variation may in part be due to tribunal members specialising in certain types of issues within Pakistani claims.

Applicants who were represented by a lawyer or migration agent were five times more likely to succeed that those without representation (5.32, 95% CI [4.69, 6.03]), controlling for all other variables (including the country of origin of the applicant, the individual decision-maker, their gender and date of appointment, and the political party that appointed the decision-maker). 

When applicants appeared before tribunal members first appointed by a Labor government, their odds of success were 30% higher (95% CI [1.12, 1.51]), (when compared to Liberal-National Coalition-appointed members), controlling for all other variables (including the country of origin of the applicant, whether they had legal representation, the individual decision-maker, their gender and date of appointment).