No more humiliating and stigmatizing “psychological testing” of sexual orientation in asylum procedures

Today’s ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is the result of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s (HHC) decade-long struggle to put an end to the humiliating and stigmatizing psychological testing of asylum-seekers’ sexual-emotional orientation in asylum procedures.

The CJEU ruled that such examinations interfere with applicants’ right to private life, and as such, cannot be taken into consideration in the course of an asylum procedure. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee has been advocating against these methods, systematically used by the Hungarian asylum authority, arguing that they are outdated, scientifically questionable and based on homophobic stereotypes.

Instead, the HHC promotes a multidisciplinary, effective and humane method of credibility assessment world-wide, including a viable alternative to psychological tests established before the second world war, which look at homosexuality as a pathology.