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.
The original founding board members, those who held office on the executive at various points throughout the first year, were: 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: The service provided free representation in the Federal Court of Australia to any detainee who had an arguable case.
It acted on a pro bono basis for refugees in a number of cases, including the following: 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: RASSA has been discussed in academic papers[4] and covered in domestic and international media.