On April 2, Dr. Jill Alpes presented an article, co-authored with Dr. Grazyna Baranowska, at a VCMLWorkshop. The article, titled ‘The Politics of Legal Facts: The Erasure of Pushback Evidence from the European Court of Human Rights‘, explores how structural biases shape evidentiary practices at the ECtHR. Drawing on case law analysis, interviews, and participant observation, the study examined how these biases contribute to the invisibility of border violence in legal judgments. Alpes critically assessed the Court’s reliance on state-produced evidence, its presumption of member states’ good faith, and its exclusion of documentation submitted by civil society organizations and international bodies. She demonstrated that the Court’s evidentiary practices impose unattainable standards of proof on asylum seekers. As a result, these practices structurally disadvantage individuals seeking protection. Alpes called for a clearer separation between the factual narratives put forward by courts and those advanced by states. She further argued that the presumption of good faith should no longer apply in cases where there is evidence of misrecordings or false statements by respondent states. The subsequent discussion addressed the implications of these findings for strategic litigation and advocacy. Participants considered possible avenues for contesting evidentiary biases at the ECtHR and reflected on the broader consequences of such legal erasures for the protection of migrants’ rights in Europe.
