Migrants and the Courts

Geoffrey Care is the current Chairman of Eurasylum's International Advisory Board. He is the founder and, until 2003, the first President of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (IARLJ), the main international organization in the field of asylum appeal law with a membership of over 300 judges in 53 countries. He is Deputy Chief Adjudicator and a former Chairman of the United Kingdom's Immigration Appeals Tribunal. Geoffrey Care has been an immigration judge in the UK for over 20 years, as well as on secondment by the UNHCR to South Africa. He is a former High Court Judge in Zambia and Head of the Department of Law at the University of Jos. He has also taught at several other universities, including the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London. He has conducted training sessions for asylum decision-makers in Europe and internationally, and he is the author of several publications on asylum law and policy.

’Immigration and asylum are rarely off the front pages of British newspapers and increasingly the decisions of British judges on whether people should be allowed to stay in the UK are also matter of public discussion in the papers. This fascinating book gives the reader an insight into why and how this has happened. How did immigration control and refugee protection become part of British law and move from an area where administrative discretion was exercised in quiet back rooms to one characterized by the objectives of transparency and judicial oversight? This book provides extraordinary insights which answer at least some of these questions. Written by a judge whose professional career spanned the most important period of this transformation, this book explains how rule of law came to a field of administrative authority and why.’ Elspeth Guild, Queen Mary, University of London, UK and Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands ’Geoffrey Care is a realist, candidly acknowledging that there is no such thing as a perfect procedure for assessing refugee status. Yet this book rightly insists that nothing less than transparency and accountability in making these life-and-death decisions is acceptable, and shows how best to get there.’ James C. Hathaway, University of Michigan, USA ’A fascinating history, told with interesting anecdotal first hand commentaries, of the first 40 years of immigration and asylum appeals in UK. Geoffrey Care highlights the pains and strains of the huge growth in numbers and the constant battle for independent judicial decision making. Complimented with excellent country comparatives this is important reading for all decision makers, judges, government policy makers, and politicians, lawyers, academics and media commentators.’ Allan Mackey, Former President, IARLJ, Senior Immigration Judge, UK, Chair of Refugee and Residence Appeal Authorities, New Zealand, Visiting Lecturer University of Tokyo, Japan ’An excellent book on migr

• 1: Laying the Foundations; 2: From the Home Office to the Lord Chancellor's Department; 3: The Development of the Tribunal Structures; 4: Getting the Facts – Interpreting the Evidence, Credibility; 5: What Price State Security?; 6: How Other Countries Do It:Belgium, North Africa, South Africa and Sweden; 7: How Other Countries Do It – Canada The Evolution and Development of the Refugee Status Determination System in Canada and the Balanced Refugee Reform Act; 8: Afterword