Assignment 1 - Refugees and Protected Persons

For this assignment you have to research the country conditions, pertaining to human rights violations, by using the most recent Index for Turkey; The IRB National Documentation Package; U.S. DOS (United States Department of State) Report on Turkey; and reports of other international organisations such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, etc.

You also have to research in order to find the documents that will support the Basis of Claim of your client (but you do not need to fill out the BOC). Identify the main issues in his Narrative and find supporting documents in order to prepare the Disclosure Package AND write your Submissions, in which you will address those main issues.

With regard to the Disclosure Package, you do not need to put in any actual supporting documents for this assignment (like the BOC form, or any other personal documents), except a few crucial documents about the country conditions found on the Internet. In your references, you need to provide as many as possible active links for those supporting documents from the Internet, together with their titles and I will assess whether those documents are relevant for your case, and whether you missed relevantdocuments that would negatively affect your client's claim for refugee protection.

When you feel you have gathered enough evidence supporting the Narrative provided for your client's refugee claim, you have to write the Submissions. Use very strong arguments to persuade the Member of the Immigration and Refugee Board to render a positive decision pertaining to your client's case. Therefore, you have to demonstrate your good researching skills as well as creative, critical, and abstract way of thinking, and ability to incorporate data from researched material into your submissions

assignment will be graded on:

1. Your research skills - based on finding as many as possible relevant/ corroborative documents for your submissions that are connected to all possible issues that had arose from the narrative of your client.

2. Your ability to implement the data from those documents into your submissions in the light of the Convention refugee definition. You also have to assess whether your client really experienced both persecution and discrimination, and to what extend the discrimination amounted to prosecution; or did he really experience only persecution or only discrimination - the onus is on you to prove your position.

3. What issues you have discussed in your submissions, and whether those issues were crucial for your client's claim.

4. What kind of arguments you used to support your clients' claim, and how strong and persuasive those arguments were.

5. Whether you took into consideration some other options, like switching from Convention refugee claim to the claim of a person in need of protection, keeping in mind that both cannot be done at the same time.

The hearing of the claim must be finished under one section (s 96) first, and then - if it would be necessary - suggest the hearing under another section (s 97). This switch of the sections of the IRPA would be justified only if it would be clear that the claimant doesn't meet the criteria of s 96 and that he wouldn't be admitted as Convention refugee.

It is up to your judgement to choose the best course, but then you have to strongly defend your position in your submissions. Your submissions have to have the following logical and coherent/cohesive structure:

1. a good introduction (where you will sketch the profile of your client and briefly explain the issues of your client's case - as they are stated in his narrative);

2. a few supporting paragraphs (the body of your submissions, in which you have to support your position by the findings of your research, with the purpose of giving the documentary evidence for your client's story; it means: throughout your supporting, transitional and cohesive paragraphs, you have to develop your idea defined in your introduction, underlining your arguments for all issues of the claim);

3. a very strong conclusion (in which you have to summarize the case and write a very strong and persuasive final arguments why the Member should render a positive decision in your client's case). Your conclusion should be a summary of your position, with the rationale behind it that underlines the reasons why it is impossible for your client to go back to Turkey, and why you do believe that the IRB/RPD Member should reach a positive decision for your client's refugee case.