La credibilità del richiedente protezione internazionale tra cultura del sospetto, intuizioni e dilemmi etici. Alcune riflessioni a partire da un’indagine sulle prassi operative delle commissioni territoriali

The Italian procedure to apply for international protection requires that the applicant is interviewed by a competent territorial commission which has the task of evaluating the validity of the asylum application. Our article analyses the modus operandi of the territorial commissions. More precisely, we will focus on the criteria that inform the decision-making process, on the knowledge and skills that are mobilized by those who are part of it, on the strategies adopted by the commissioners to discern the individual requests and on the ethical dilemmas that accompany the exercise of their functions. We draw on a research conducted between 2012 and 2014 during which we interviewed 13 members of five territorial commissions, 6 lawyers specialized in assisting asylum seekers, 4 social workers and 9 asylum seekers. As we will see, in the daily activity carried out by the committees a fundamental game is played in the management of migratory processes and the tension between the respect of the right of asylum and the increasingly widespread suspicion towards applicants for international protection is highlighted.