Almost one-in-four asylum-seekers who have appealed against refusals to grant them refugee status in the past two years either withdrew their cases or failed to show up for hearings.
The workload of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal increased by just under a third last year on the previous year, with a total of 5,297 appeals received. Some 86 per cent of decisions by the Refugee Applications Commissioner to refuse refugee status were appealed to the tribunal.
The tribunal last year granted refugee status to a quarter of people who appealed to it after their initial asylum applications were turned down by the commissioner's office. The tribunal affirmed the decisions to refuse refugee status to the other 75 per cent.
In its annual report for 2002, the tribunal says it is concerned that 18.6 per cent of its 5,275 scheduled hearings last year were either "no-shows" or withdrawals.
In 2001, no-shows and withdrawals accounted for 30.9 per cent of the 3,037 scheduled cases. This works out as an average of 23 per cent, or almost one in four cases, over the two-year period.
The report says the numbers of no-shows and withdrawals last year are "an issue of concern to the tribunal, having regard to the time and resources of staff and members applied in scheduling and preparing for an appeal".
Nigerians accounted for slightly more than a quarter of all appeals received last year, followed by Romanians at 9 per cent. Some 5 per cent of appeals were from Moldovans, with 4 per cent by Croatians, and 3.5 per cent each by Russians and citizens from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Of the 4,703 substantive appeals decided upon last year, more than half of all Angolans were recognised as refugees by the tribunal, compared to a third of Russians, 17 per cent of Romanians and 11 per cent of Nigerians.
The tribunal recently started issuing reasons for its positive decisions to successful claimants, but still does not provide unsuccessful asylum applicants with reasons for the rejection of their claims for refugee status on the grounds that they are fleeing persecution.
The report notes an increase in the numbers of appeals from unaccompanied children, a pattern which is likely to continue.
The tribunal takes an average of 17 weeks to handle substantive appeals.