Tests on gay asylum seekers break EU law, says court

PSYCHOLOGICAL tests on gay asylum seekers to “prove” their sexuality break EU law, the European Court of Justice ruled yesterday.

Hundreds of homosexuals from Africa, the Middle East and Chechnya have claimed asylum in the EU on the basis of persecution in their home countries. The ruling sets a precedent which should be observed in all 28 EU member states, including Britain.

Judges in Luxembourg said that basing an asylum decision solely on the result of a psychological evaluation broke EU law because it infringed on the human rights of privacy and dignity. The decision concerned an appeal by a Nigerian man against a Hungarian decision to deny him asylum. The claim was rejected after psychological tests did not prove he was gay.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) clarifies points of EU law for national courts and is the highest court in the bloc. The case will now be dealt with by the Hungarian court, which must take the EU judges’ decision into account.

In 2014 EU judges made a similar ruling about a case in the Netherlands. Last year, the Home Office released data that showed that, over a two-year period, more than two-thirds of the 3,535 asylum seeker applications involved sexuality.

The Home Office was criticised in 2017 after it brought in new rules that would send gay Afghans back to Afghanistan, where homosexuality is illegal and “wholly taboo”.

Home Office guidelines say that claimants should “establish to a reasonable degree of likelihood” their sexuality, and that a person’s declared sexuality should be taken as a “starting point” in a case.