Members of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal are paid on a fee-per-case basis. The fees vary, depending on whether it is a document-based case, whether it is an accelerated appeal (involving countries deemed safe by the Government) or a full oral hearing.
The fees range from €165 where the case is withdrawn, to €1,150 where a husband and wife are both involved in an oral hearing. An oral hearing with an individual takes between one and 1½ hours, but this varies widely between different members of the tribunal, according to practitioners.
Applications for refugee status and appeals are heard in private. This is to preserve the confidentiality of the asylum seekers and is the norm internationally.
However, the Irish appeals tribunal differs from similar bodies internationally in that it does not publish its decisions.
Nor does it reveal the basis on which cases are allocated to individual members, or release any statistics on the records of individual members or on the general trend in decisions. It only publishes figures concerning the outcomes of appeals overall.
This refusal to publish its decisions was the subject of a judicial review in the High Court last year, where the tribunal was ordered to publish its decisions.
It has declined to do so pending the outcome of aappeal against the decision, which opens in the Supreme Court today.