Asylum adjudication system: A new frontier of legal culture

Abstract

Over the last 15 years, Italy has faced an exceptional migratory surge which brought the Italian asylum system into the limelight. Previously, asylum applications were rare, and the control of irregular migration dominated the political and legal debate. The growing number of applications for international protection put the asylum system under pressure and it was reformed in 2017 and in 2018. This article aims to understand the asylum adjudication system in Italy through the lens of the concept of legal culture. In particular, the concept is used as an approach (Nelken 2004) that focuses on reconstructing and analysing the changes that have taken place in the area of the international protection in Italy and the institutionalization process affecting the asylum adjudication procedures. Migration as a phenomenon, and in particular the system of recognition of international protection, has a deep impact on legal rules and specifically on judges, who are obliged to face the limits of their knowledge and of a formalistic approach to law. The article reports the results of a research conducted in an Italian tribunal and will try to answer some key questions on how asylum cases have impacted on the legal system, making this topic one of the new frontiers of the legal culture.