Eric Avebury writes… Light on the horizon for some gay asylum seekers

By Eric Avebury | Mon 24th June 2013 - 11:03 am

In 1995 our immigration law was amended so that asylum applicants from countries that were designated as ‘safe’ no longer had a right to appeal against refusal unless their case was ‘certified’ by the Secretary of State. With a Border Agency prone to error, a risk arose that people with good cases might be unjustly be detained, speeded through a truncated process and deported.

Even the Home Office recognised that in some designated countries, there was endemic persecution of women. In 2005 an Order was made adding some countries to the list of those deemed safe, but for men only.

I asked for a similar exception be made for LGBT people, on the floor of the House and in correspondence with the Minister, Lord Bassam, pointing to the particular case of Jamaica, where, notoriously, homophobia was (and still is) rampant. The power to do so exists in law, but the Government refused to exercise it.

Over ten years later, after a good deal more unproductive correspondence and debates with both Labour and Tory Ministers, the Court of Appeal has come to the rescue!

In the case of JB (Jamaica), the court ruled that the claimant hqad been wrongly detained, and the designation of Jamaica as a safe country for LGBT people was unlawful.

The Government is spending public money on an appeal to the Supreme Court, but with luck, the genie’s out of the bottle. The whole subject of LGBT persecution, not just in Jamaica but also in a number of other Commonwealth countries where same sex relationships are outlawed, must surely be considered.

The Commonwealth Charter, agreed by member states last December, commits them to
“…equality and respect for the protection and promotion of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, for all without discrimination on any grounds as the foundations of peaceful, just and stable societies”.

Yet in Uganda, American evangelical missionaries openly incite hatred of gays, leading to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill and the murder of the brave gay rights activist David Kato a year ago. In Gambia, homosexuality is illegal and President Jammeh refers to gays as ‘Satanic’.
Surely, these grave breaches of the Charter should attract condemnation from the Commonwealth Heads of Government when they meet in Sri Lanka in November.

In the meanwhile, the Government must demonstrate their commitment to equality between people of all sexual orientations, as provided by our own Equality Act, by withdrawing their appeal to the Supreme Court, and amending the immigration law to restore the right of gay people from homophobic states to appeal against refusal of asylum applications.

* Eric Lubbock, Lord Avebury, is a working peer, and Vice-Chair, Parliamentary Human Rights Group. He blogs here.

Read more by Eric Avebury or more about asylum or LGBT rights.
This entry was posted in Op-eds.

3 Comments

Graham Evans 24th Jun '13 - 12:55pm

With a few exceptions, British Governments, as distinct from the UK Parliament, have a pretty poor record when it comes to promoting gay rights, whether at home or abroad. Notably examples are:

1. Homosexuality was only decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 1982 as a a result of a ECHR judgement.

2. The notorious Section 28 legislation was promoted by the British Government in 1988.

3. In 1996 the Government of John Major opposed Euan Sutherland in the ECHR regarding the age of consent. (The court ruled against the British Government but the age of consent was not equalised until the election of the Labour Government in 1997.)

4. During John Major’s time as PM, the Government also opposed the case brought in the ECHR regarding gays serving in the armed forces. The case overlapped with the election of the Labour Government which nevertheless continued to fight the case and only amended the regulation after the ECHR ruled that the ban on gays in the military was illegal.

5. While the 1997 Labour Government did eventually repeal Section 28, it was scarcely high on its listed of priorities. Its first attempt at repeal was not until 2000, and repeal was only finally achieved in 2003.

In the light of this history, David Cameron’s promotion of the Gay Marriage Bill is actually something of an exception when it comes to UK governments being proactive.
Suzanne Fletcher 25th Jun '13 - 8:51am

Thanks for taking up this issue of what should be basic regard for respect and humanity of people who have fled here for safety. the UK should be making a stand to the world on condemning this abuse in some countries, and certainly not sending people back to a regime of terror and death. It is appalling that public money, so scarce as well, is being spent on challenging regard for human rights.
This also leaves the question of people being able to prove, to an unwritten standard of the Home Office, that they are gay.
Keep on flying the standard for human rights,
Mark Platt 1st Jul '13 - 12:40pm

Thank you for your hard work, and for your perseverance Eric.

I was in Paris this weekend, where Gay Pride celebrated the passing of the marriage equality for lesbians and gays, and with our own legislation likely to pass shortly, its too easy to forget the dangers that still face many LGBT people living around the world.

I’d like to think that a Lib-Dem Govt would not be fighting these cases, or defending the ‘principles’ that lie behind them…