Assessing the Credibility of Refugee Applicants: A Judicial Perspective

The principal responsibility of refugee decision makers is todetermine those to whom refugee protection is owed. The mannerin which these decisions are to be made in Australia is thesubject of ongoing debate. However, that debate is not the subjectof this paper. The focus of this paper is on the credibilityassessment of refugee applicants and its principal purpose isinstructive. It is my hope that it will enhance the credibilityof credibility assessment within existing processes. Its secondarypurpose is to provide a basis from which policy makers may considerlegislative and other procedural change. It has been suggested that the ‘devil is in the detail’in refugee decision making. Working in a common law country,Australian refugee decision makers are afforded the (often binding)benefit of extensive judicial review of the refugee determinationprocess.¹ Thus, for Australian decision makers, the ‘devilin the detail’ is often to be found in a plethora of bindinglegal precedent. Accordingly, while the first part of this paperdiscusses selected matters which have facilitated the assessmentof the credibility of refugee applicants in Australia, as oneof the most authoritative domestic sources available, the secondpart of this paper principally focuses on the expressed viewsof Australian courts after examining credibility findings indecisions of the Refugee Review Tribunal.²     

What Do Prosecutors Maximize? Evidence from the Careers of U.S. Attorneys

This study examines the performance of chief federal prosecutors(U.S. attorneys) and their subsequent careers. In a sample of570 attorneys in office from 1969 to 2000, the length of prisonsentences is positively related to subsequent favorable careeroutcomes for U.S. attorneys. In contrast, conviction rates donot appear to affect the careers of U.S. attorneys. These resultsare consistent with longer total prison sentences’ beingpersonally beneficial to prosecutors, and prosecutors’maximizing the length of prison sentences. Overall, the resultssuggest that sentence length, as opposed to convictions rates,is the relevant performance metric.     

Court Awards of Damages for Loss of Future Earnings: An Empirical Study and an Alternative Method of Calculation

This article examines the effect upon damages for personal injury of methods used in the United States of America to calculate loss of future earnings. The work of lawyers is examined from the perspective of labour economists. The damages calculated by using these alternative methods are compared with those actually awarded in over a hundred cases determined by courts in England and Wales. This interdisciplinary and comparative study reveals that the tort system fails to satisfy one of its main objectives in that it does not provide recipients of damages with 'full' compensation.