Jill Hunter

A mixed-method study of expert psychological evidence submitted for a cohort of asylum seekers undergoing refugee status determination in Australia

The levels of exposure to conflict-related trauma and the high rates of mental health impairment amongst asylum seekers pose specific challenges for refugee decision makers who lack mental health training. We examined the use of psychological evidence amongst asylum decision makers in New South Wales, Australia, drawing on the archives of a representative cohort of 52 asylum seekers. A mixed-method approach was used to examine key mental health issues presented in psychological reports accompanying each asylum application, including key documents submitted for consideration of asylum at the primary and review levels. The findings indicated that the majority of decision makers at both levels did not refer to psychological evidence in their decision records. Those who did, particularly in the context of negative decisions, challenged the expert findings and rejected the value of such evidence. Asylum seekers exhibiting traumatic stress symptoms such as intrusive thoughts and avoidance, as well as memory impairment, experienced a lower acceptance rate than those who did not across the primary and review levels. The findings raise concern that trauma-affected asylum seekers may be consistently disadvantaged in the refugee decision-making process and underscore the need to improve the understanding and use of mental health evidence in the refugee decision-making setting. The study findings have been used to develop a set of guidelines to assist refugee decision makers, mental health professionals and legal advisers in improving the quality and use of psychological evidence within the refugee decision-making context.

Mental Health Expertise in Refugee Status Decision-Making: Judging or Caring?

Therapeutic and legal methodologies address credibility assessment in crucially different ways. These differences can generate mistrust and antipathy between refugee decision-makers and mental health professionals whose expert assessment reports are offered to assist decision-making. The anthropologist Good, quoted above, provides a graphic expression of one aspect of this discipline rift, highlighting the contrast of focus between the decision-makers perspective and the therapeutic lens in the highly sensitive legal environment of refugee determinations. Here a high percentage of applicants exhibit psychological sequelae of trauma. In addition, cultural and linguistic differences add to the challenge. These elements are particularly pertinent where, as is often the case, the applicants story is the pivot of his or her claim for protection. This article draws upon an Australian cross-disciplinary empirical study (known as the Tales study) in which the authors and psychology and psychiatry colleagues explored the propensity for psychologists and refugee decision-makers to misunderstand each others perspectives. The authors discuss the reasons why such misunderstandings arise, and the consequences for the decision-making process, and conclude with reference to guidelines developed from the Tales study which are intended to assist those providing expert opinions, decision-makers, and representatives.

Gender Discrimination and Juries in the 20th Century: Judging Women Judging Men

This article presents a comparative study of the 20th-century exclusion of women from participation on juries. It explains that until the 1970s, and in some cases even the 1990s, substantial formal limitations on jury franchise were placed on women in Ireland, Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia. This situation existed notwithstanding women’s equality of political franchise through the vote and despite judicial references to the centrality of the jury. While in England and Wales women were not treated differently from men in formal terms after the 1920s, property qualifications denied them substantive equality and informal limitations excluded women disproportionately. We highlight some distinctive features of the English experience as compared and contrasted with the laws and policies on jury composition operating in other jurisdictions, and ask whether the legacies left by the traditionally unrepresentative jury and the battles for gender equality offer lessons relevant to understanding jury trials in contemporary times.