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Summary in Primary Language:
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Additional Legal Information:
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The applicant’s appeal against the SSHD’s refusal of his claim for asylum was dismissed. The claim comes before the Court...The applicant’s appeal against the SSHD’s refusal of his claim for asylum was dismissed. The claim comes before the Court of Session as an application for judicial review of the SSHD’s refusal to treat submissions and fresh evidence of his mental health breakdown and its relationship to his coming to terms with his true sexuality as a fresh claim for asylum post-HJ (Iran).
In sustaining the petitioner’s plea, the Court of Session holds that the SSHD made a material error of law by failing to bring ‘the mental health material into her evaluation of the prospects of success for the petitioner’s homosexuality claim’ (paragraph 29), having rather treated it as a purely separate human rights issue irrelevant to the refugee status claim. The decision is interesting for giving recognition that an individual’s coming to terms with his/her true sexuality can be related to questions of personal and mental health in some cases, especially where the person comes from a society intolerant of same-sex relationships. Presumably, the possibility of further mental breakdown if returned to that country would be relevant to speculation on the way in which an individual would in fact act, as well as to the effects of repression of one’s true sexuality as a form of persecution. read more
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