Encounters in courtroom. Italian judges as front-line workers in asylum proceedings

Abstract

In Italy the judiciary plays a relevant role in asylum adjudication. Indeed, judges are crucial decision makers, deciding on the merit of a huge number of asylum claims rejected at first instance. For this reason, it is extremely timely to understand how asylum adjudication is put into practice by judges. Thus, the article studies asylum adjudication in courts through the lens of the Street-Level Bureaucracy, focusing on the encounter between judges and asylum seekers. In particular, the research seeks to understand the uses, causes and consequences of discretion in asylum appeals, focusing on coping mechanisms judges develop during their job. With this aim, the research conducts observation of hearings, interviews and shadowing in five Italian civil courts, showing how coping mechanisms are determined by organisational and individual factors and they influence in different ways the quality, equity and efficiency of asylum proceedings.