The appellant challenged rejection of her asylum application made on human rights grounds. Medical evidence said that ‘There was a body of evidence before the senior immigration judge on the subject of the appellant’s mental health. It is sufficient to refer to a report by Dr David Bell, a consultant psychiatrist, who was in agreement with earlier diagnoses and gave a full assessment of the appellant’s condition. Dr Bell said that the appellant was suffering from severe depressive disorder, with typical symptoms of objective features of depression, pervasive apathy, pervasive depressed mood, very poor appetite, guilt and self-blame, history of suicide attempts, disturbed sleep and morbid existential preoccupations. There were also typical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, with a typical pattern of intrusive thought, noise sensitivity, flash-back phenomena, hallucinatory experiences, nightmares, avoidance of stimuli that might trigger anxiety attacks, and paranoid ideation.’
Held: The appeal failed. Richards LJ looked at the requirements under Article 3: ‘The senior immigration judge was also right to stress the particularly high threshold that has to be crossed for a claim of this nature to succeed under article 3.’
Judges:
Rix LJ, Richards LJ, Lawrence Collins LJ
Citations:
[2008] EWCA Civ 1210
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – McKinnon, Regina (On the Application of) v Secretary Of State for Home Affairs Admn 31-Jul-2009
Assurances for Extradition
Extradition of the defendant was sought to the US to face allegations of hacking into defence computers there. He said this would infringe his article 3 rights, saying that he suffered Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Held: The application failed. US . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Immigration, Human Rights
Updated: 14 November 2022; Ref: scu.277565