mcgillianaire: (Scale of Justice)
"This judgement should be celebrated as a victory for progressive thought; but it is nothing more than justice being done." [LINK]


Until yesterday, gay asylum-seekers could be deported under a controversial Home Office policy, even if they faced persecution in their home country. But in a unanimous ruling that mirrors a 2002 decision by the High Court of Australia, five of the country's senior-most judges have upheld the right of gay refugees to live in Britain, if they can establish that they faced persecution in their home countries.

The case of the two unnamed men (one from Cameroon and the other from Iran) was heard by the Supreme Court after their applications had been rejected on the basis that they could choose to keep their sexual orientation a secret upon deportation. However Lord Hope, deputy president of the court, who headed the panel of five justices said that to compel a homosexual to pretend that their sexuality does not exist or can be suppressed was to deny him his fundamental right to be who he is. Lord Rodger added that the normal behaviour of gay people must be protected as it was for heterosexual people, while Lord Walker noted that "the notion a gay man could (and so, some might say, should) avoid trouble by adopting a "discreet" lifestyle (or leading an entirely celibate life) is not limited to the context of asylum law. It is the way in which hundreds of thousands of gay men lived in England before the enactment of the Sexual Offences Act 1967."

The Home Office's 'reasonable tolerability' test (that was also used by the Court of Appeal) has been rejected in favour of a new three/four-stage test, in which asylum tribunals must first ask if the appellant is gay or would be treated as someone who is gay by potential persecutors in his/her home country. Second, is there evidence that someone who lived an openly gay life would be at risk of persecution in that country? Third, how would the appellant actually live if returned? If they would live openly then clearly they are not a refugee. But if they would live discreetly, a fourth question must be asked: why will they exercise discretion? The justices offered a distinction between discretion on grounds of persecution and discrimination. If for example an appellant simply wanted to avoid social pressures or family shame, the asylum tribunal would have to reject the application. Persecution means more serious harm, for example: prison, rape, torture or death.

There was also an interesting reference to pop culture by Lord Rodger who said: "To illustrate the point with trivial stereotypical examples from British society: just as male heterosexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates." And you thought senior judges were cricket-loving, wig-wearing, out-of-touch, senile old farts.

Well done Supreme Court for correcting a series of wrongs. It's decisions like these that reaffirm one's confidence in our legal system.
mcgillianaire: (Lib Dems)


One of the Lib Dem policies being pounced upon by the opposition, particularly the Tories, is the supposed amnesty on illegal immigrants. The moment I read about it I thought hang on a second, isn't this something Boris Johnson, the Tory Mayor of London, supports as well? Lo and behold, there's an article about it in today's Guardian. Nicholas Blincoe, a former advisor to Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg writes: "Frankly, there are times when you thank God for Boris Johnson. During the mayoral campaign in April 2008, Johnson backed a campaign known as "Strangers into Citizens", an initiative that aims to offer a one-off route into citizenship for the half million-plus migrants currently trapped in the black economy." So there we go, it's not just some wacky Lib Dem policy. In fact, Blincoe describes not only how difficult it was to initially convince Clegg of the idea but how, to the disappointment of the Strangers into Citizens campaign, the Lib Dems opted only to regularise those migrants who'd been in the UK for ten years, rather than the four years suggested by the campaign and accepted by the London mayor! As Blincoe points out, "On this issue, Johnson is outflanking the liberals – and proving that the Tories are capable of seeing sense on immigration." Ah, but you ask what difference does Johnson's support make? Not much except that anywhere between 57% and 75% of the approximately 725,000 illegal immigrants in the UK live in London. That's a sizeable number of people whose decriminalised immigration status and subsequent re-integration could make a significant difference to British society as a whole. But is anybody listening?

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