Explaining geographic disparities in asylum appeal success rates at different hearing centres around the UK

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Asylum seekers who appeal against initially negative decisions are more than twice as likely to be successful if their case is heard in North London than if their case is heard in Newport or Manchester. This is true for all asylum seekers in the UK, but also applies to specific nationalities. Iranians, for example, enjoy a 34% success rate at one hearing centre and only an 18% success rate at another, Afghans' success rates vary from 31% to 17% depending upon the court, and Zimbabweans' from 54% to 22%. These geographic disparities have not been investigated in the UK because the data on appeal success rates is not publicly available. This proposal draws upon two successful freedom of information requests (FIRs) however, in order to piece together the geography of asylum appeal success rates (see Figure One, case for support).An examination of these disparities is important for various reasons. First, asylum seekers who appeal may be facing a lottery in terms of the court that hears their case, which is arbitrary and unjust. Second, immigration law firms and their clients (such as the Legal Services Commission) may be facing an uneven landscape in terms of the degree of success they can expect in different parts of the country. Understanding this 'lawscape' will empower them with the knowledge to direct their resources more effectively. Third, official bodies with responsibility for asylum appeals, such as the Ministry of Justice and UKBA, need information and analysis in order to make a judgement about whether steps should be taken in order to improve the geographic consistency of the asylum appeal system. Fourth, the wider legal community, beyond immigration law, should be alerted to the existence and impact of geographic disparities in legal processes.The obvious research question arising from these disparities concerns why they exist. Accepting that the discrepancies are unlikely to have occurred by chance (less than 0.01% likelihood according to statistical analysis of the FIRs), four explanations present themselves. First, there may be administrative processes that direct strong cases towards certain courts, although preliminary enquiries put to officials from UKBA, immigration judges and practising immigration lawyers do not support this explanation. Second, some asylum seekers have legal representation and others do not, and this geography of legal aid may be driving the discrepancies. In light of the 10% contraction in legal aid funding in the UK as part of recent austerity measures, this explanation seems particularly important to address. Third, different judges may be predisposed towards particular decisions. This was the finding of quantitative US-based research that demonstrated that the gender and age of immigration judges has significant impact over their decisions, underscoring the importance of investigating this set of factors in the UK case (Ramji-Nogales et al, 2009). And fourth, there may be differences in the daily practices of courts - their rhythms, cultures and routines. This set of factors, centring upon courts as distinct and non-homogenous places, remains understudied in legal geography as well as legal studies more broadly.This research will examine the relative salience of these four groups of variables in explaining disparities in asylum appeal success rates. In so doing, the research will bring together qualitative and quantitative forms of analysis in order to generate a rich and innovative set of explanations for the disparities; constitute the first statistically informed UK-based analysis of national disparities in asylum appeals; impact upon the way policy makers, politicians and lawyers in the field of immigration law, as well as appellants, approach their activities; and have wide implications for the theoretical and empirical study of the relation between geography and law in the future.