Report finds refugee deadline to be unfair and dangerous

Refugees who failed to meet an “unfair and dangerous” federal government deadline to apply for asylum must be allowed to lodge their claims without penalty, a new report has recommended.

They must also be offered access to government-funded legal and interpreting assistance and other resources necessary to complete applications that run to at least 33 pages and contain more than 180 questions, the researchers said.

Instead, the estimated 71 asylum seekers face the loss of government payments and potential deportation to the countries from which they fled because they did not apply for temporary protection or safe haven visas by October 1.

Dr Anthea Vogl and Sara Dehm, from the UTS Faculty of Law, said the imposition of a punitive four-month deadline in May 2017 by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, coupled with his department’s “discriminatory” Fast Track Assessment process, contravened some of the core protections provided by the Refugee Convention and several other international conventions.

“The ‘lodge or leave’ terms of the deadline, with those falling foul of it able to be deported without determination of their protection claim, breaches Australia’s most fundamental obligation under international refugee law: the prohibition on sending people back to places where they may face persecution,” Vogl and Dehm said.

“The entire Refugee Convention turns on respect for this principle.”

The 71 asylum seekers are part of a larger group of 7,500 refugees who were given roughly four months to lodge full applications for asylum or leave the country.

The researchers said the deadline and the Fast Track Assessment process applied to all asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat between August 2012 and January 2014, estimated to be about 30,000.

Against key international standards stipulated in core UNHCR instruments, only a small portion of affected asylum seekers were eligible for government-funded legal assistance. The majority of asylum seekers subject to the deadline – almost nine-tenths – instead had to rely on free legal assistance from community legal centres.

Though the deadline has now passed, the report found that the harms caused by it will be ongoing.

"The deadline will impact far more people than the 71 asylum seekers who did not meet it by October 1,” said Vogl and Dehm.

“We hold serious concerns about the validity and correctness of any negative refugee status determination (RSD) decisions affecting members of the so-called ‘Legacy Caseload’. The procedural unfairness that has characterised the process means these decisions may be incorrect and lead to refugees being returned to danger.”

Dr Anthea Vogl said the government’s response to the remaining refugees had the potential to set in place an unfair and unsafe standard.

“A punitive response to those 71 refugees establishes a dangerous Australian precedent.”

An Unfair and Dangerous Process is published by Academics for Refugees. Access the report in full here.