A report that examined the success of asylum reforms in Switzerland in 2019 has made sweeping recommendations to fix the system in Australia, where claims are at a six-year high and wait times stretch to more than a decade.
"The dominant approach in Australia for decades has been to try and restrict the rights of applicants and their ability to put forward their case properly in order to try and speed up the process," report co-author Daniel Ghezelbash told AAP.
"But the enduring backlogs and increasing delays show that approach doesn't work."
The UNSW Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law director criticised how both coalition and Labor regimes had processed cases in "arbitrary ways" without a clear strategy focused on efficiency and fairness.
A record 117,500 people are onshore awaiting a decision about becoming permanent refugees or facing deportation, according to figures released by the Department of Home Affairs in September.
One of those caught up in the drawn-out and bureaucratic asylum assessment procedure is Thamilselvan Selvakumar.
The 28-year-old Tamil has been on bridging visas for 12 years while his permanent protection claim bounces around the courts.
He jumped on a cramped, rickety boat from Sri Lanka when he was 15 after his brother was killed in the waning years of a bloody civil war.
He arrived at Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, and was detained for six months followed by another six months in Darwin.
There are up to 115,000 people in Australia seeking asylum. (Con Chronis/AAP PHOTOS)
Mr Selvakumar has been showing up at a sit-in outside the office of Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke's electorate office for 58 days, along with other asylum-seekers to call for the government to expedite the years-long process.
"We want everyone of us who is living in limbo to have a permanent pathway to residency as soon as possible," he said.
The former Abbott coalition government established an assessment scheme to resolve the visa applications of more than 30,000 asylum seekers who arrived by boat between 2012 and 2014.
But the policy has been criticised for failing to live up to its name with 10,000 people nationwide being left in legal limbo with restricted work and study rights on their visas.
More than 37 per cent of decisions by the authority have been overturned by the courts, the report noted.
"When Labor said they would come into power they said they'd change the system but still two and half a years and they haven't done anything about it," Mr Selvakumar said.
The Kaldor Centre report puts forward 12 recommendations including training more people to decide and review cases as well as giving applicants the power and agency to prepare their cases properly through adequate legal means.
Every applicant in Switzerland has access to a government-funded, independent lawyer which the report co-author said could be trialled in Australia.
Dr Ghezelbash said the "stakes are too high" when it comes to assessing people's asylum claims.
"A wrong decision can result in a person being sent back to a place where they face persecution or other forms of serious harm or even death," he said.
"There's no shortcuts with this. These are some ideas, but they (government) really need to do the consultation to get it right and it shouldn't be a hit and run policy."
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