The increasing global magnitude and exigency of refugee status determination is resulting in recent attention to the parameters of credibility as part of evidentiary assessment in refugee law. In Australia, as in other countries, it is well recognised that applications for review of primary level decisions on refugee status commonly fail on the basis of credibility evidence. Furthermore, it has been suggested that the assessment of credibility is likely to be a source of error in decision making. In this article, I report on the results of a small-scale study into decision-making and credibility assessment at the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal involving interviews with decision-makers. Drawing on feminist theories of epistemic responsibility, I argue for a revised standard of proof, suggesting a rebuttable presumption of credibility, or truthfulness, on the part of the applicant seeking asylum. Such an approach may go some way towards addressing the potential for epistemic injustice and is consistent with a position of epistemological responsibility demanded by an ethical obligation to the refugee.
Through an analysis of the parliamentary debates on the Sex Discrimination Bill 1983-84, this chapter underscores the anxiety that preoccupied the opponents of the Bill. Their fear that the Bill would give rise to a totalitarian regime, reminiscent of an Eastern bloc country, is clearly apparent from their own words. Not only would the passage of the Bill signal a blow to democracy, it would result in the creation of a unisex society and, most significantly, the demise of the nuclear family.
Refugee law posits the refugee as a rights-bearing subject prior to legal recognition. Th e determination procedures from which legal protection may be availed to a person escaping persecution demand that the applicant be recognizable as a subject entitled to law's power to name her as a refugee. In this article, I draw on speech act theory to investigate the rhetorical structure of refugee recognition. Viewed as a performative speech act, refugee subjectivity emerges as a result of repetition and citation of tropes of "refugee-ness," which function to legitimate and naturalize certain representations as evidence of the grounds for protection. Th is places applicants in a paradoxical position: they must attempt to deliver their evidence as a performance of refugee-ness, but in making the narrative recognizable and understandable according to the norms of the legal process, the singularity, and possibly the authenticity, of the account may be lost. The argument is supported by empirical research conducted at the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal.Keywords : refugee law , Australian Refugee Review Tribunal , speech act theory , performativity Résumé Le droit des réfugiés positionne le réfugié comme un titulaire de droits avant même la reconnaissance de son statut juridique. Les procédures de détermination, selon lesquelles des personnes fuyant les persécutions peuvent être accordé une protection juridique, nécessitent que l' on puisse reconnaître le demandeur comme un sujet intitulé au pouvoir légal d' être nommé réfugié. Dans cet article, je m'appuie sur la théorie des actes de langage afin d'examiner la structure rhétorique de la reconnaissance du statut de réfugié. Considérée comme un acte de langage performatif, la subjectivité des réfugiés apparaît suite à des répétitions et des citations de tropes, où le « concept de réfugié » légitime et naturalise certaines représentations comme preuves de motifs de protection. Ceci met les demandeurs dans une situation paradoxale : ils doivent essayer de donner leur preuve en performant en tant
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