At the end of April, the administrative district court, contrary to the decision of the Citizenship and Migration Affairs Board (PMLP), ordered the state to provide asylum in Latvia to a homosexual citizen of Ghana, according to the publicly available court verdict.
Last summer, a citizen of Ghana applied to the State Border Guard with a request to be granted refugee or alternative status in Latvia. The man stated that he was homosexual and would be considered a threat to society in his country of origin, Ghana. He was allegedly discriminated, persecuted, physically and emotionally affected.
He was denied refugee and alternative status by the Citizenship and Migration Board, which questioned the man’s claims of belonging to Ghana’s LGBT+ community.
Disagreeing with the administration’s decision, the man appealed to the court. He argued to the court that the rights of homosexuals are being violated in Ghana, as evidenced by information found in the country’s information sources. In Ghana, he did not have the opportunity to appeal to the authorities for help, because they were allegedly corrupt. In the view of the court, PMLP has evaluated the situation in Ghana formally and superficially, without checking the actual circumstances of the case. The Board had been informed that homosexual relations in Ghana are punishable by imprisonment, but this circumstance was not taken into account when making a decision in the applicant’s case.
After evaluating the case materials, the court has concluded that there is no objective reason to doubt the veracity of the information provided during the examination of the applicant’s asylum case. The court found the story that he was forced to leave Ghana because he felt persecuted because of his sexual orientation “consistent and therefore believable”.
“In the case under consideration, there is reason to recognize that the country of origin cannot provide the applicant with protection against possible persecution. Same-sex sexual relations between adults are illegal in Ghana, and, according to the new amendments to the law, even forming or financing LGBTQ+ groups is punishable by up to five years in prison years, therefore, at the time of drafting this judgment, the court has no objective reason to believe that Ghana or its law enforcement authorities could provide the applicant with protection,” the judgment reads.
The court granted the man’s application and ordered the PMLP to make a decision on granting refugee status within a month.
It has already been reported that in the summer of 2023, the Administrative District Court, contrary to the decision of the PMLP, ordered the state to provide asylum in Latvia to a homosexual citizen of Russia. On the other hand, in February 2019, the Administrative District Court, contrary to the PMLP decision, instructed to grant refugee status in Latvia to a Lebanese citizen who was persecuted in his homeland due to his sexual orientation.
