The Role of Legal and Non-Legal Intermediaries in Accessing Justice: The Case of Pushbacks from Italy and Austria

This paper examines how legal and non-legal intermediaries facilitate access to justice for refugees facing pushbacks from Italy and Austria. Legal mobilization, which involves strategic use of legal systems for political and social change (Zemans 1983), relies on intermediaries such as lawyers, NGOs, activists, and informal networks to connect individuals with the legal field. Recent socio-legal research has increasingly focused on these dynamics, particularly in migration studies (Cummings 2018, Bonizzoni and Odasso 2024). Legal intermediaries, including lawyers and advocacy organizations, use strategic litigation to challenge state actions and protect individuals’ rights. While international-level research is extensive, national-level comparative studies remain understudied (Kawar 2015, Miaz and Kawar 2021, Passalacqua 2016, Goodwin-Gill 2022). Although legal representation is crucial for refugees’ access to justice (Eagly and Shafer 2015), legal mobilization extends beyond formal legal actors to include diverse intermediaries who shape legal opportunities (Lehoucq & Taylor 2020). Non-legal intermediaries, such as grassroots movements and civil society organizations, complement legal efforts in several ways. They document human rights violations and gather evidence (Davies, Isakjee and Obradovic-Wochnik 2023; Trucco et al. 2023), conduct advocacy campaigns to influence judicial outcomes, and frame issues of injustice to mobilize public support (McCann 2006). These actors persist in supporting refugees despite operating in potentially hostile environments where their activities may face criminalization (Haddeland & Franko 2022; Trucco 2023). The success of access-to-justice initiatives largely depends on the interaction between legal and non-legal intermediaries (Vanhala 2018). In migration-related cases, lawyers often collaborate with NGOs to protect refugees' rights at borders, combining technical expertise with grassroots knowledge (Pijnenburg & Van Der Pas 2022). Drawing on legal mobilization literature, this study frames intermediaries as enablers of court access and challengers of systemic injustices, acting as counter-power to state authorities (Kawar 2021). Based on specialized literature in migration governance concerning border violence and pushbacks (Costello and Mann 2020; Pijnenburg & Van Der Pas 2022, Trucco 2023), it investigates how intermediaries navigate legal and political contexts to facilitate access to justice, examining their concrete practices in bridging procedural gaps and managing complex judicial processes. With this aim, the article offers a comparative analysis of the Austrian and Italian cases, which are well-suited for such study, revealing the critical role of intermediaries in addressing pushbacks while resulting in contrasting outcomes. In Austria, collaboration between NGOs, lawyers, and judiciary successfully halted pushbacks to Slovenia, while Italy continues such practices despite similar actor involvement and legal frameworks. In both countries legal standing and evidence collection are critical. Against this backdrop, civil society organizations engage in crucial cross-border cooperation to maintain contact with affected individuals, particularly those transferred through Croatia to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and gathering evidence for judicial proceedings despite procedural limitations. The research analyzes what occurs in these two contexts focusing on these intermediaries and their relationships within Legal Opportunity Structures (LOS) while considering agent-level characteristics such as organizational identities and structures (Vanhala 2018). Methodologically, the research combines desk research with expert interviews, including asylum lawyers, legal associations, NGOs, journalists, and judges.