Konceptualizace právní jinakosti v azylovém dokazování: Od formální k antropologické interpretaci neobvyklých právních autorit
Conceptualisations of Legal Otherness in Asylum Evidentiary Practices: From formal to anthropological interpretations of unconventional legal authorities

Summary/Abstract: This article presents an analytical study of several asylum cases on which Czech courts issued rulings between 2007 and 2022. It focuses on exposing the ways in which asylum authorities/courts conceptually treat legal otherness on the basis of incomplete information in the practical context of asylum proceedings. It demonstrates how the judgments of Czech asylum courts deal with the legal differences of countries of origin in evidentiary interpretations of documents, such as transcripts of asylum interviews or country-of-origin information (COI), by reconstructing the conceptual frameworks in which the alterity of the origin countries’ state legal systems and customary law is embedded. It identifies particular evidentiary concepts that do not easily fit into the standard ontology of formal asylum law. In particular, Czech court rulings tend to conceptually frame unconventional legal authorities (like elders, traditional councils) as cultural entities, non-state actors, or private persons, which paradoxically disqualifies them from the ontological possibility of posing (or preventing) a threat to refugees by operating an (in)effective legal system. The article discusses the possibility of applying an alternative of legal-anthropological conceptualisation of unconventional legal authorities, focusing specifically on Afghanistan, Jordan, and Yemen.

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