Legal Questions

Legal questions are some of the most common types of questions we get asked. However, the contexts in which Signposts works are massively complex and legal information changes regularly. As a result, answering an individual legal question has massive potential to cause harm if not answered correctly. Most Signpost digital community liaisons are not lawyers or qualified to provide legal advice.

If you are a lawyer, as is the case in some Signpost instances, you may be able to provide some forms of legal advice.

If you are not a lawyer, you should never advise people on:

• Any aspect of an asylum claim.
• Individual legal cases and situations.
• Any illegal activities eg. how to leave a country illegally or through smugglers.
• Specific legal providers or processes that might be most relevant to an individual user 

How to Respond to Legal Questions from Users on their Specific Cases

If someone gets in touch with us to ask a specific legal question about their case, the best response is:

• “Hi, we’re sorry, but we can’t offer legal advice on individual situations. You need to speak to a lawyer. A list of legal services for refugees in Greece/Serbia can be found here: https://www.Signpost/greece/services/."
• “We know that times are tough right now, and we wish this Santoria covered all workers. We fact check all of our information with lawyers but if you want advice for your specific situation, we do recommend that you talk to a lawyer directly. Feel free to send us a private message and we can help to direct you to a legal provider in your area.” 

How to Respond to Broad Legal Questions (Affecting a Large Number of People) 

Sometimes, we will get questions that may be legal in nature, but are likely to affect a large number of people.

For Example: 

''Do you know what will happen to a refugee's Greek residence permit if they use their travel document to travel to a European country and stay longer than the official 3 months?''

Legal questions that apply to a number of people should be passed onto the editorial team. This allows us to: 

• Ask our legal support teams for assistance.
• Feedback to the person who asked the question with an appropriate response drafted by our legal partners.
• Develop content to share with a wider audience on the issues.

If you are unsure whether a legal question is individual or more general, always ask the editorial team.