Street-level bureaucrats and coping mechanisms. The unexpected role of Italian judges in Asylum policy implementation

In spite of a great relevance of the Common EU Asylum System (CEAS) for the whole, still ongoing, EU migration crisis, few academic research focuses on the CEAS implementation at national level and/or in comparative perspective. This explorative study aims to fill this exact gap offering, through a crucial case study perspective, up-to-date data on the CEAS implementation in Italy. The focus of the article is on the judicial stage through which asylum seekers appellate the rejection decisions taken (in first instance) by the governmental administrative bodies at territorial level. In fact, the Italian asylum procedure has been modified in 2017 setting up specialized sections, within the Italian lower courts, dealing with migration issues. Such specialized sections have gradually become crucial institutions in implementing the CEAS in Italy. Here, adopting the Street Level Bureaucracy (SLB) perspective, the study aims to disentangle the margin and the use of discretion (coping mechanisms, strategies and perception of their job) adopted by Italian judges dealing with international protection. The paper aims also to show the added value of adopting such an original perspective, discussing the potential implications of judges behavioural discretion in terms of policy goals and potential impact on asylum seeker rights.