To access refugee protection in Australia and Canada, refugee applicants must speak. They must present their oral testimony in person, repeatedly and at length, unmediated by a legal representative or advocate, and in many cases without the benefit of documents, witnesses or other forms of evidence to verify their claims. This book is about the oral evidence that refugees are compelled to give, the stories they are required to narrate, and the genres of storytelling they are required to master during administrative oral hearings for the assessment of refugee status in Australia and Canada. This introductory chapter establishes the book’s central concerns, namely: what the presentation, interrogation and assessment of testimony during the oral hearing tell us about the refugee subject whom Refugee Convention-signatory states judge as authentic, credible and, ultimately, acceptable. It then carefully connects the demand for narrative within RSD with the intractable problems of credibility assessment. Finally, it interrogates the role of law, lawyers and interpreters in shaping the refugee testimony and analysis presented throughout the book.

This chapter addresses the history of the refugee oral hearing in Australia and Canada. It explains how and why the oral hearing became a central event within RSD processes in each jurisdiction and traces the role of refugee testimony up until the introduction of a quasi-independent administrative process for RSD and into the present day. In both countries, the introduction of statutory RSD procedures and an oral hearing represented a shift toward enhanced administrative rights and justice for onshore refugee arrivals. However, it also occurred in the context of an increasing state focus on the ‘genuineness’ of refugees and major reforms that sought to limit and control onshore refugee arrivals in both jurisdictions. The chapter then traces more recent reforms to RSD processes in Australia and Canada. This later history reveals that the ‘right’ to fair and independent decision-making processes has become increasingly constrained in both jurisdictions, and that limiting access to RSD has become a key means by which states enact policies of refugee deterrence and exclusion.