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Case Law

Supreme Court
04/10/2007
Legal provision Directive 2004/83/EC
Area Asylum and subsidiary protection
Grounds of discrimination Discrimination on ground of sexual orientation
Topic Discrimination by public bodies
Right to asylum , Spain , Discrimination on ground of sexual orientation .
Key facts of the case:

Refusal to accept for consideration a Russian citizen’s asylum application based on harassment on the grounds of his sexual orientation (non-admission confirmed by a decision of the Ministry of National Affairs of 22.03.2002). The decision was appealed at the National Court (Third Section). The Court rejected the appeal in its Decision of 29.12.2003.
The applicant argued that he had been at risk due to his homosexuality from the moment he was called to the Russian army (with threats to his physical and psychological integrity and to his freedom of speech). He also argued that he was a proscribed citizen (hiding from the Military Administration and the Police, avoiding the citations sent to him by the army and seeking refuge at the homes of friends).
The Administration did not accept the application for consideration, as it argued that there was no evidence of harassment on the grounds of the individual’s sexual orientation.
The National Court, in charge of the contentious-administrative appeal, considered that the established facts referred to the applicant’s fear of being discriminated against in the army because of his sexual orientation, without providing any evidence to demonstrate any existence of harassment. The applicant’s obligation to “establish true facts of the harassment suffered, by means of sufficient proof or evidence of the circumstances which would justify the granting of the asylum claim” was considered to be unfulfilled.

Main reasoning/argumentation:

The Supreme Court recalled that the acceptance of an application for consideration only requires the allegation of harassment and that the application was not based on clearly false facts, data or allegations.
It is “a positive requirement (description of the circumstances of harassment) together with a negative requirement (that there are no clear false facts) which opens the process”.
“The Administration – and the judges and courts – should not judge, at the admission phase, whether there are sufficient indications of the alleged persecution. If the facts alleged describe a persecution and the facts are not clearly false, the application deserves to be accepted for consideration”.
A further consideration is that the Administration did not provide data or documents which could justify the unacceptability of the claim of persecution related to his homosexual orientation alleged by the applicant.

Key issues:

The Decision clarified the requirements for not accepting an asylum application for consideration. The asylum application submission phase is not the suitable procedural point to assess whether there is sufficient proof of the harassment on the ground of the sexual orientation invoked in the case.
The reasons alleged by both the Administration and the National Court to justify the non-acceptance of the application referred to the core substance of the case [the existence of harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation] which could only be assessed once the asylum application had been admitted and processed and after allowing the applicant the chance to provide evidence of the truthfulness of his story.

Results:

1. The appeal was upheld.
2. The Contentious-administrative appeal 605/02 lodged by the applicant must be accepted for consideration.
3. The Decision of the Ministry of National Affairs of 22.03.2002 was declared null and void.
4. The appellant’s right to the examination of his asylum application in a procedure in Spain was acknowledged.