What Assumptions about Human Behaviour Underlie Asylum Judgments?

Abstract

In order to claim recognition as a refugee, individuals must give a 'plausible' account of persecution. Decision makers must then decide on the truthfulness of the account, and whether the person fits the legal definition of a refugee. Decision makers often have little corroborating evidence, and must make an assessment of credibility, largely a subjective response, involving a reliance on assumptions about human behaviour, judgements, attitudes, and how a truthful account is presented. This article describes a study of the assumptions in judgments made by UK immigration judges. Assumptions were defined and a coding structure used to systematically extract a list of assumptions from a series of written determinations. These assumptions were then submitted to an inductive thematic analysis. The resulting themes are compared briefly to the psychological and psychiatric literature, raising the question of whether assumptions used in asylum decision making are in line with current empirical evidence about human behaviour. The article recommends cross-disciplinary research to build an evidence base in order to help inform the decision making process in this crucial area of law.

The Fast Track Refugee Assessment Process and the Mental Health of Vulnerable Asylum Seekers

“…Decision makers frequently synthesise various data sources and rely upon their own assumptions about human behaviour when making such judgements. 36 The Need for an Integrated Mental Health and Legal Response In addition to evidence of traumatic experiences and asylum seeker processes being interlinked, suicide is known to be the leading cause of premature death for asylum seekers in Australia. 37 People who have had firsthand experiences of self-harm and suicidal behaviour À either personally or as a witness À may find it difficult to engage with authorities for fear of further traumatic experiences.…”

Credibility Assessments as 'Normative Leakage': Asylum Applications, Gender and Class

“…The 'subjective dimension' has been pointed out in research (e.g. [3,25,26]). For instance, Herlihy et al [25] discuss the assumptions of the assessors.…”

“…[3,25,26]). For instance, Herlihy et al [25] discuss the assumptions of the assessors. These approaches elucidate important aspects of the assessments, though these aspects are not analysed by focusing on how sociocultural narratives are read, as the present article intends to do.…”

Just Tell Us What Happened to You: Autobiographical Memory and Seeking Asylum

“…Briefly, the focus has been on whether heightened emotion at the time of an event helps or hinders memory for the event. This is of crucial interest to those in the asylum decision-making field where it is often assumed that emotional arousal will facilitate detailed memories of the event, for example the Immigration Judge who determined that 'given that rape is such a serious thing to happen to any women, I would have expected a raped person to know when they were raped' (Herlihy et al, 2010). However, theory and research suggests that very high levels of arousal are inhibitory (e.g.…”

“…Consequently, the asylum process relies heavily on how the decision maker assesses the credibility of the claimant and the truth of their autobiographical account (Coffey, 2003;Macklin, 2006;Noll, 2005). This process has been criticised as being subjective and hence, more open to inconsistency and unfairness (Herlihy, Gleeson, & Turner, 2010;Independent Asylum Commission, 2008;Shaw & Witkin, 2004). Herlihy and Turner (2007) emphasise that psychologists practicing and researching in the field of autobiographical memory hold a wealth of knowledge that is relevant to the process of deciding asylum claims.…”