Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:58:44.994Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The role of lawyers, judges, country experts and officials in British asylum and immigration law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2020

John R. Campbell Open the ORCID record for John R. Campbell [Opens in a new window]
John R. Campbell*
Affiliation:
Doctor and Emeritus Reader in the Anthropology of Africa and Law, School of Oriental & African Studies, London
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: jc58@soas.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the work of lawyers, judges and country experts involved in asylum and migration litigation. I begin by analysing their work in the wider semi-autonomous asylum field within which a number of powerful institutions operate to shape policy, define the roles of key actors and determine access to legal redress/justice by asylum applicants and migrants. To understand the work of these three legal actors, I analyse four very different types of legal cases involving asylum, foreign adoption and migration law. An analysis of these cases helps to identify the constraints on effective litigation on behalf of refugees and migrants against the British Home Office and it illustrates the fact that it is Home Office policy, and the decisions taken by Home Office officials, that created the injustice for the individuals concerned by blurring the ‘bright line’ differentiating between the rights of nationals and those of ‘foreigners’.

Keywords

lawyersjudgescountry expertsUnited Kingdommigrationlitigation
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Blommaert, J (2001) Investigating narrative inequality: African asylum seekers in Belgium. Discourse & Society 12, 413–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bondy, V and Sunkin, M (2009) The Dynamics of Judicial Review Litigation: The Resolution of Public Law Challenges before Final Hearing. London: The Public Law Project.Google Scholar
Bosworth, M, Parmar, A and Vázquez, Y (eds) (2018) Race, Criminal Justice, and Migration Control: Enforcing the Boundaries of Belonging. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P (1987) The force of law: toward a sociology of the juridical field. The Hastings Law Journal 36, 814–853.Google Scholar
Byrne, R (2007) Assessing testimonial evidence in asylum proceedings: guiding standards from the International Criminal Tribunals. International Journal of Refugee Law 19, 6-9-638.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, JR (2014) Nationalism, Law and Statelessness: Grand Illusions in the Horn of Africa. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Campbell, JR (2016) Asylum v sovereignty in the 21st century: how nation-state's breach international law to block access to asylum. International Journal of Migration and Border Studies 2, 24–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, JR (2017) Bureaucracy, Law and Dystopia in the United Kingdom's Asylum System. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Campbell, JR (2020) Examining procedural unfairness and credibility findings in the UK asylum system. Refugee Survey Quarterly 39, 1 hdz017. Available at https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/hdz017 (accessed 17 March 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clayton, G and Firth, G (2018) Immigration and Asylum Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conley, J and O'Barr, WWM (1998) Just Words: Law, Language and Power. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Consterdine, E (2013) One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. Evaluating the Institutions of British Immigration Policymaking. London: Institute for Public Policy Research Briefing.Google Scholar
Crawley, H (2010) ‘No one gives you a chance to say what you are thinking’: finding space for children's agency in the UK asylum system. Area 42, 162–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dauvergne, C (2004) Sovereignty, migration and the rule of law in global times. The Modern Law Review 67, 588–615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duvell, F and Jordan, B (2003) Immigration control and the management of economic migration in the United Kingdom: organization culture, implementation, enforcement and identity processes in public services. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 29, 299–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engelke, M (2008) The objects of evidence. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), S1–S21.Google Scholar
Ethiopia (1999) The Revised Family Code. Federal Negarit Gazetta, Ordinary Issue no. 1/2000, Code Proclamation no. 213/2000 (4 July 2000). Available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/4c0ccc052.html (accessed 2 March2020).Google Scholar
Galanter, M (1974) Why the ‘haves’ come out ahead: speculations on the limits of legal change. Law & Society Review 9, 95–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geddes, A (2003) The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe. New York: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibb, R and Good, A (2014) Interpretation, translation and intercultural communication in refugee status determination procedures in the UK and France. Language and Cultural Communication 14, 385–399.Google Scholar
Good, A (2004) ‘Undoubtedly an expert’: anthropologists in British asylum courts. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10, 113–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Good, A (2007) Anthropology and Expertise in the Asylum Courts. Oxford: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Good, A (2008) Cultural evidence in courts of law. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), S47–S60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, C (1994) Professional vision. American Anthropologist 96, 606–633.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoehne, M (2016) The strategic use of epistemological positions in a power-laden arena: anthropological expertise in asylum cases in the UK. International Journal of Law in Context 12, 293–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holden, L (2019) Beyond anthropological expert witnessing: toward an integrated definition of anthropological expertise. In Holden, L (ed.), Cultural Expertise and Socio-legal Studies, special issue in Studies in Law: Politics and Society. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 1–22.Google Scholar
Jacquemet, J (2009) Transcribing refugees: the entextualization of asylum seekers’ hearings in a transidiomatic environment. Text & Talk 29, 525–546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, D and Killick, I (2012) Empathy and expertise: caseworkers and immigration/asylum applicants in London. Law & Social Inquiry 37, 430–454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JCWI (Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants) (2018) Response to Home Office Windrush Review Call for Evidence. London.Google Scholar
Jones, CAG (1994) Expert Witnesses: Science, Medicine and the Practice of Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kobelinsky, C (2019) The ‘inner belief’ of French asylum judges. In Gill, N and Good, A (eds), Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 53–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, B (2010) The Making of Law: An Ethnography of the Conseil D'Etat. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Mather, L and Yngvesson, B (1980/81) Language, audience and the transformation of disputes. Law & Society Review 15, 775–821.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, SF (1972/73) Law and social change: the semi-autonomous social field as an appropriate subject of study. Law & Society Review 7, 719–746.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nader, L (2001/02) The life of the law – a moving story. Valparaiso University Law Review 36, 655–674.Google Scholar
National Audit Office (NAO) (2018) Handling of the Windrush Situation. London. Available at https://www.nao.org.uk/report/handling-of-the-windrush-situation/ (accessed 2 March 2020).Google Scholar
Peiris, G (1987) Wednesday unreasonableness: the expanding canvas. Cambridge Law Journal 46, 53–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riles, A (2006) Anthropology, human rights, and legal knowledge: culture in the Iron Cate. American Anthropologist 108, 52–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, L (1977) The anthropologist as expert witness. American Anthropologist 79, 555–578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rostain, T (2004) Professional power: lawyers and the constitution of professional authority. In Sarat, A (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Law & Society. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 146–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, C and Turpin, P (2005) Neither here nor there: temporary admission to the UK. International Journal of Refugee Law 17, 688–728.Google Scholar
Sorgoni, B (2019) The location of truth: bodies and voices in the italian asylum procedure. PoLAR May, 161–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomkinson, S (2015) Doing fieldwork on state organizations in democratic settings: ethical issues of research in refugee decision making. FQS Forum: Qualitative Social Research 16, Article 6.Google Scholar
Vervliet, M, Rousseau, MC and Derluyn, I (2015) Multi-layered ethics in research involving unaccompanied refugee minors. Journal of Refugee Studies 28, 468–485.Google Scholar
Vetters, L and Foblets, M-C (2016) Culture all around? Contextualizing anthropological expertise in European courtroom settings. International Journal of Law in Context 12, 272–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, R (2019) The nationality and immigration status of the ‘Windrush Generation’ and the perils of lawful presence in a ‘hostile environment’. Journal of Immigration and Nationality Law 33, 218–239.Google Scholar