suggested that the problems lay in the political realm. Pursuant to court rulings by the highest courts, being overworked does not automatically absolve an authority in cases of slowness in processing. However, obviously the Asylum Court was and is dependent on the funding and personnel resources available to it. The Independent Federal Asylum Senate drew attention to its personnel shortage as long as 10 years ago, but there was no response from the political realm. Since it was founded in July 2008, the Asylum Court has received around 50,000 proceedings to process, of which around a half were existing proceedings. In total it has been able to process two-thirds of the proceedings. 80% of new proceedings involving a complaint have been processed within the statutory deadlines. However, based on current planning it will be late 2011 or early 2012 before all existing proceedings will have been closed and decisions made regarding new complaints (within the statutory deadlines), i.e. a year later than originally planned. The AOB has therefore advised that comprehensive support be given to the Asylum Court in its work, to prevent a large backlog of proceedings. The President of the Asylum Court has assured the AOB that it is on the right track. However, the Asylum Court has also stated that due to being short staffed, and in light of the heavy workloads on its staff, a speedy solution is not going to be feasible. Asylum Court claims to be on the right track ALIENS POLICE AUTHORITY SLOW IN PROCESSING There have been repeated cases of despairing individuals contacting the AOB because proceedings handled by the Aliens Police Authority seem to go on endlessly. On several occasions the AOB has reminded the authority that for example investigations regarding possible sham marriages have to be completed within three months. The goal of this is to prevent delays in residence permit proceedings. Among the complaints in 2010, in many instances there were also problems with family member residence permits, as the following cases show. Authorities must keep to statutory deadlines Vienna City Administration MA 35 sent a file to the Aliens Police Authority office of the Federal Police Directorate Vienna, because it suspected a sham marriage in proceedings for granting a family Six months of waiting 25