Livia Johannessons föreläsning kommer att ta cirka en timme. Därefter kommer det att finnas möjlighet till frågor och diskussion. Kaffe/te och frukt kommer att finnas på plats.

Seminariet kommer preliminärt att hållas på svenska men om det visar sig att det finns flera internationella besökare på plats så kommer Livia att presentera på engelska.

Anmälan: senast torsdag 31 januari: https://doodle.com/poll/yafevp4skbf6ughi

In Courts We Trust: Administrative Justice in Swedish Migration Courts

Abstract

In my research I have investigated how judicial practices generate administrative justice in asylum determination procedures. Previous research on immigration policies argues that when asylum determinations are processed in courts, principles of administrative justice are ensured and immigrants’ rights protected. I scrutinize that argument by approaching administrative justice as an empirical phenomenon open for different types of interpretations. Instead of assuming that administrative justice characterizes courts, I assume that this concept acquires particular meanings through the practices of the courts.

The main result is that a ceremonial version of administrative justice is generated at the migration courts. This version of administrative justice forefronts symbolic dimensions of justice, while disguising several unfair aspects of the asylum appeal procedure. The implications of these findings are that immigration policy research needs to reconsider the relationship between the courts and immigrants’ rights by paying more attention to the everyday practices of ensuing administrative justice in courts than on the instances when courts oppose political attempts to restrict immigrants’ rights. 

Livia Johannesson (bio)

Livia Johannesson is a political scientist specialized in immigration research, public administration and interpretive policy analysis. She defended her dissertation thesis in March 2017, which dealt with Swedish asylum policy and the role of courts in determining asylum claims. Livia often uses ethnographic methods in her research and has co-authored an introductory book to ethnography for political science.  Currently, she studies decision-making in mega-project planning as she is part of a research project about the new University Hospital in Stockholm, Nya Karolinska Solna.