• Keynote speaker explores how judicial bias impacts refugee-status decisions
• Latest research on air arrivals, the legacy caseload, citizenship, refugee participation in decision-making, and the socioeconomics of attitudes towards people seeking asylum
Is it better to accept a refugee claim that should have been rejected, than to reject a claim that should have been accepted? Keynote speaker Dr Hilary Evans Cameron will confront the question at the flagship conference of UNSW’s Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law on Tuesday 26 November.
Under the theme ‘Good Decisions: Achieving fairness in refugee law, policy and practice’, the Kaldor Centre Conference brings together leading thinkers and the latest research on issues vital to the contemporary challenge of forced migration.
Dr Evans Cameron, a former litigator now at the University of Toronto, notes that in the asylum context there is no equivalent of Blackstone’s maxim that it is better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man is punished – but she says there should be.
The author of Refugee Law’s Fact-Finding Crisis: Truth, Risk, and the Wrong Mistake (Cambridge University Press, 2018) rejects the suggestion, however, that this represents a ‘soft’ approach:
‘Why should we be ‘harder’ on refugee claimants than on people charged with murder? The police and the prosecutor believe that Mr. A has murdered someone, but we still give him the benefit of the jury’s doubts. Mr. B says that his government will torture him if he returns. Why should he pay, potentially with his life, for our decision-makers’ uncertainty?’ asks Dr Evans Cameron. ‘Resolving doubt in the claimant’s favour would not open the border any more than Blackstone’s maxim has emptied the jails.’
She leads an impressive line-up of experts examining the challenges and human impacts of how decisions affecting refugees are made – from the individual to the policy level:
· The Kaldor Centre’s Regina Jefferies looks at how political context becomes part of the ‘rules of the game’ that influence how low-level staff make crucial decisions, tracking the ways that Australia’s ‘on water’ policies translate to the context of people claiming asylum at airports.
· Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow reports on how asylum claims for members of the ‘Legacy Caseload’ are assessed, while Associate Professor Mary Anne Kenny and Professor Nicholas Procter reveal the ‘lethal hopelessness’ that results.
· Hazara Women of Australia president Najeeba Wazefadost considers the role of people with lived experience in decision-making.
· Kaldor Centre Senior Research Associate Dr Sangeetha Pillai examines the barriers to refugees’ full inclusion – such as delays, temporary protection and proposed language and residence requirements – by detailing Australia’s changing approach to citizenship.
· University of Queensland Professor and The Wealth Paradox (Cambridge University Press, 2017) co-author Jolanda Jetten challenges the conventional wisdom about populism, with research showing that affluence hardens attitudes towards refugees as much a poverty does.
The sessions will be led by Om Dhungel (consultant and trainer), Abdul Karim Hekmat (journalist and photographer) and Shukufa Tahiri (Policy Officer at the Refugee Council of Australia).
Kaldor Centre Acting Director Professor Guy S Goodwin-Gill will give the Year in Review, and the day concludes with an interactive Q&A panel featuring Administrative Appeals Tribunal Senior member Shahyar Roushan, Federal Court of Australia Judge Melissa Perry and Shaun Hanns, a former Protection Obligations Decision Maker at the Department of Home Affairs.
Every day, decisions are made about whether people need international protection because they are at risk of persecution or other forms of serious harm – the Kaldor Centre Conference 2019 is an unparalleled opportunity to consider how it is done.
The Kaldor Centre Conference, ‘Good decisions: Achieving fairness in refugee law, policy and practice’, runs from 9am to 5pm, Tuesday, 26 November, at UNSW’s Law Building (F8 on the campus map)
Full conference program.
