Legal Geographies of Immigration Bail: Space, Time & Remote Hearings

无论是在整个欧洲还是在欧洲国家内部，移民法的适用方式都存在显著的空间差异。在欧洲一级，国家之间在用于确定难民申请的正式程序和法律在实践中的实施方式方面都存在根本差异(Gill&Good 2018)。在英国等国家，移民法院根据上诉人的胜诉率、法律代表的可获得性以及法院内部文化的不同而明显不同(Gill等人2018年；Burbridge&Gill 2017年)。这些差异意味着，难民决定至少在一定程度上是一个运气问题，而不是正义问题，对倒霉的人可能会产生可怕的后果。各国和欧洲的法律掩盖了这些差异，因为它们设想并公布了对司法管辖区的抽象理解，即内部连贯和空间上的同质。例如，欧洲共同庇护制度(CEAS)--欧洲一级管理难民申请确定的主要立法--认为，尽管希腊、保加利亚、瑞典或法国的成功率、法律程序和社会经济状况不同，但在希腊、保加利亚、瑞典或法国决定你的庇护申请之间没有法律上的相关性(Gill&Good 2018)。法律地理学是一个迅速发展的跨学科领域，它产生了“具有实际政策相关性的工作以及向权力说真话”(Bartel et al 2013：349)。然而，迄今为止，尚未对移民法进行系统的法律地理分析。这一研究项目试图填补这一空白，提出以下问题：1.英国和欧盟移民法中对空间的想象是如何的？2.英国和欧盟的移民法和实践在多大程度上以及如何变化？3.这些差异对上诉人来说是什么原因和后果：特别是在诉诸司法方面？方法论需要民族志和访谈。将采用两个案例研究来探讨移民法与空间之间的关系：英国和保加利亚的庇护决定制度。英国法院和法庭服务处正在经历一场全球前所未有的现代化。这种现代化的一个核心要素是引入数字技术来支持法律程序。然而，尽管视频链接技术在英国司法系统中的使用越来越多，但吉布斯(2017：4)突显了对其影响的“缺乏研究”。对实体和虚拟听证的人种学观察，以及对英国各地法律从业者和上诉人的采访，将揭示英国庇护法法庭法律环境的这种深刻变化的后果。在欧洲层面，2015年所谓的“难民危机”最严重的时候，CEAS被大幅修改。创新的一个来源与所谓的“都柏林协议”有关，该协议允许合法地将庇护申请者驱逐到欧洲边缘地区，其基础是整个欧洲的法律程序都是可比的。虽然大多数边缘国家不允许公众获得庇护上诉，但保加利亚在允许公众观察其上诉制度方面表现突出。保加利亚庇护上诉制度与英国制度的人种学比较将使候选人能够探索法律程序的质量在多大程度上独立于其在欧洲各地的位置。为了方便保加利亚的实地工作，JO将在保加利亚花一段时间--我们预计是四个月--定期观察来自法院公共区域的庇护上诉。她将需要海外费用来完成这一部分的研究，以及保加利亚语的培训。

There are significant spatial variations in how immigration law is applied both across Europe and within European countries. At the European level, fundamental differences exist between states both in the formal procedures used to determine refugee claims and the way that laws are implemented in practice (Gill & Good 2018). In countries such as Britain, immigration courts differ markedly according to the rate of success of appellants, the availability of legal representation, and the cultures within courts (Gill et al 2018; Burridge & Gill 2017). These differences mean that refugee determination is at least partly a matter of luck rather than justice, with potentially dire consequences for the unlucky ones.National and European laws conceal these differences because they conceive of, and promulgate, abstract understandings of legal jurisdictions as internally coherent and spatially homogeneous. For example, the Common European Asylum System (CEAS)- the main piece of legislation at the European level that governs refugee claim determination - holds that there is no legally relevant difference between having your claim for asylum determined in Greece, Bulgaria, Sweden or France, despite the differences in success rates, legal procedures and socio-economic circumstances between these countries (Gill & Good 2018).Legal geography is a rapidly developing interdisciplinary field, which produces 'work of practical policy relevance as well as speaking truth to power' (Bartel et al 2013:349). To date, however, a systematic legal geographical analysis of immigration law has not been carried out. This research project seeks to fill this gap, asking:1. How is space imagined in UK and EU immigration law?2. To what extent, and how, does immigration law and practice vary across space in the UK and in the EU?3. What are the causes and consequences for appellants of these variations: in particular in relation to access to justice?Methodology entails ethnography and interviews. Two case studies will be adopted to explore the relationship between immigration law and space: British and Bulgarian asylum determination systems. The British Courts and Tribunals Service is undergoing a globally unprecedented modernisation. A central element of this modernisation is the introduction of digital technology in supporting legal processes. Yet despite this increasing use of video-link technology in the UK justice system, Gibbs (2017:4) highlights a 'dearth of research' into its impact. Ethnographic observations of physical and virtual hearings, alongside interviews with legal practitioners and appellants throughout the UK, will uncover the consequences of this profound mutation in the lawscape of British tribunals for asylum law.At the European level, the CEAS was heavily modified in 2015 at the height of the so-called 'refugee crisis'. One source of innovations concerns the so-called 'Dublin' agreement, which allows for the legal deportation of asylum claimants to Europe's fringes, on the basis that legal procedures are comparable anywhere across Europe. While most fringe countries do not allow the public access to asylum appeals, Bulgaria stands out in allowing the public to observe its appeal system. An ethnography of the Bulgarian asylum appeal system in comparison to the British system will allow the candidate to explore the extent to which the quality of legal procedure is independent of its location across Europe.To facilitate the Bulgarian fieldwork the Jo will spend a period of time - we expect four months - in Bulgaria regularly observing asylum appeals from the public area of the court. She will require overseas expenses to complete this section of the research, as well as training in Bulgarian.