Case summaries

The CALL ruled that while the reasons for persecution given in an asylum application can be, by themselves insufficiently serious, they could, when taken cumulatively and in connection with the situation in the country of origin, justify being given the benefit of the doubt.

Honour-related violence should be examined in the context of grounds for protection and not humanitarian considerations. The Migration Court of Appeal also discussed the application of the benefit of the doubt.

Traumatised people and those who have suffered otherwise psychologically and physically from flight behave differently when giving evidence compared with healthy people. This can mean that the full submissions relevant to asylum are not provided at the start of the proceedings or the traumatisation itself is not mentioned. These circumstances are to be taken into account during the ban on new evidence.

The Migration Court of Appeal concluded that the Migration Court made an error in carrying out a credibility assessment before evaluating the evidence. The Migration Board and the Courts must first consider if an applicant was able to make his or her account plausible based on the evidence relied on, and only thereafter make a credibility assessment.

The Court emphasised that an applicant may have the advantage of the benefit of the doubt if his or her account appears credible. In this case, the applicant was deemed not credible and therefore the benefit of the doubt was not applied.

It is important to carefully distinguish between what constitutes evidence and information submitted by the applicant.

The UNHCR Handbook is an important source of law concerning the procedure to determine protection needs. The Migration Court is responsible for ensuring that a case is sufficiently investigated by holding an oral hearing or otherwise investigating the ambiguities of the case, when an asylum seeker who has been rejected because of credibility grounds has submitted relevant documents that are deemed to be genuine by a Swedish embassy.

If any fact emerges during the interview, which indicates that the applicant could be persecuted for exercising his political rights and freedoms, or has a well-founded fear of being persecuted on the grounds upon which asylum can be granted, the Ministry of Interior obliged to conduct the interview in a way that would achieve an outcome which is sufficiently clear for the needs of considering the asylum claim. It is also necessary to evaluate the way in which state power is exercised in the country of origin, and the real possibility of exercising one’s political rights and other circumstances that could establish grounds for international protection.