PLP Report Launch: Culture and language in the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal

Free webinar via Zoom

How cultural and linguistic understanding and misunderstanding can alter case outcomes in immigration and asylum appeals?  

This event looks at the impact that cultural and linguistic understanding and misunderstanding can have on decisions in immigration and asylum appeals. It accompanies the launch of a new PLP report, Culture Matters in the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal.

The speakers will explore the concerns raised in the report, produced from the analysis of 271 cases. Contributors, including intermediaries, interpreters and lawyers working in the immigration and asylum tribunals system, will comment using their own experience with clients and cases.  

Who is this for? 

• Lawyers working in asylum and immigration, including   
• solicitors and barristers;   
• academics and researchers in asylum and immigration;   
• policy people in Government or NGOs concerned with asylum and immigration; law/cultural and linguistic studies students.  

Speakers 

• Selbi Durdiyeva, Public Law project
• Hiba Bayyat, translator and interpreter 
• Elena Shutova, translator and interpreter  
• Abiodun Michael Olatokun, 36 Public & Human Rights  
• Rebecca Hacker, Public Law Project 

New PLP report: Cultural and linguistic understanding in the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal  

• A study on how cultural and linguistic understanding emerges as a central factor that materially alters case outcomes in immigration and asylum. 
• Findings based on the analysis of 271 cases issued in the past 2 years on how judges approach the evidence that involves cultural and linguistic understanding. 
• How do people communicate across cultures (including legal culture) in cases involving the understanding of the country background, family/private life, LGBTQ+ identity, and mental health and trauma?  
• The role of legal representation, interpreters, and intermediaries in the process