Refugee Advocacy Service of South Australia

Refugee Advocacy Service of South Australia Inc. (RASSA) is a non-profit Community Legal Centre in South Australia. It was set up in 2002 to represent asylum-seekers in the Federal Court of Australia. From about 2007, it was de-funded and ceased to exist. It has, however, now began functioning again in order to assist asylum-seekers in the community in South Australia whose applications are still being processed.

History

In April 2002, a group of lawyers from the Woomera Lawyers' Group set up and established the Refugee Advocacy Service of South Australia Inc.. The purpose of the center was to organise and centralise files for the vast number of asylum seekers who had sought, or were seeking, a judicial review of their original decisions in the Federal Court of Australia.

RASSA was originally conceived as a clearing house. However, it was not always able to locate appropriate solicitors. It often went on file as the instructing solicitor. Almost all of the work performed by the service or through the service was on a pro bono basis, with the exception of one employed legal officer or lawyer who worked part-time and one employed administrative officer. A group of lawyers, often comprising board members and other senior lawyers, reviewed each file to determine whether there was a prospect of a case being run. The legal officer and the board, who almost without exception were legally trained, would then seek out pro bono counsel to run the case.

RASSA's purpose was to provide legal representation for asylum seekers in the Federal Court of Australia and to assist asylum seekers in getting their cases remitted back to the Refugee Review Tribunal. RASSA's efforts were frustrated by the Commonwealth Parliament's inclusion of a privative clause into the Migration Act. This clause narrowly restricted the grounds of judicial review.

RASSA survived almost entirely on donations sent in from supportive members of the community or from fund raising events. RASSA was also awarded several grants. The centre also accumulated a number of cost orders which were donated by counsel when granted orders whilst acting for asylum seekers on behalf of the service.

The service was recognised as filling a major gap in legal services to a marginalised minority in a time of acute sensitivity in the Australian community to the issue of refugees.

Founding board members

A number of South Australian lawyers contributed to assisting refugees (see for example Woomera Lawyers' Group). Some of these lawyers founded RASSA. The original founding board members, those who held office on the executive at various points throughout the first year, were:

Other major contributors

The service was supported by a wide range of barristers and other people involved in the law. Other people who played a prominent part in the operations of RASSA included:

Activities

The service provided free representation in the Federal Court of Australia to any detainee who had an arguable case. It represented hundreds of asylum seekers through the pro bono support of members of the South Australian profession. RASSA held fund raising and profile raising events throughout Australia.

It acted on a pro bono basis for refugees in a number of cases, including the following:

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

UN communications

RASSA also represented a number of asylum seekers who petitioned the United Nations Human Rights Committee concerning breaches of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) by Australia. In this they had at least two successes, in which Australia was found to have breached the ICCPR by arbitrarily detaining nine men:

Recognition

RASSA has been discussed in academic papers[3] and covered in domestic and international media.[4][5]

The service was awarded a special notice from Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in 2003.

References

  1. ↑ Law Council of Australia (5 November 2004). "2004 Young Lawyer Award Winners". Archived from the original on 26 August 2006.
  2. ↑ Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs v Hamdan (2005) FCAFC 113
  3. ↑ Crowley-Cyr, Lynda Mental Illness and Indefinite Detention at the Minister's Pleasure (2005) UWSLawRw 4; (2005) 9(1) University of Western Sydney Law Review 53
  4. ↑ Barkham, Patrick (May 25, 2002). "No waltzing in Woomera". The Guardian. Archived from the original on March 11, 2007.
  5. ↑ Bowden, Charles (March–April 2003). "Outback Nightmares & Refugee Dreams". Mother Jones. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
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