M.E. v Sweden - Grand Chamber judgment next week

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights will deliver its judgment in M.E. v Sweden next week on 8th April 2015 at 11am. 

Last June, in a chamber judgment, the Court continued its long-standing approach of rejecting complaints from homosexual applicants who face expulsion to countries that criminalise homosexual sexual acts. Specifically, the Court rejected the claim that a Libyan national currently living in Sweden, who is threatened with expulsion from Sweden to Libya, would be put at risk of persecution and ill-treatment because he is a homosexual. 

I outlined the chamber judgment and, in particular, the Dissenting Opinion of Judge Power-Forde (Ireland). I also considered here why Judge De Gaetano feels it necessary to use scare quotes when writing about the marriage of a same-sex couple. 

In November, the Court announced that the complaint would be referred to the Grand Chamber for consideration at the applicant's request.

When the Grand Chamber delivers its judgment next week it will simultaneously deliver its judgment in W.H. v Sweden, which concerns an asylum seeker’s threatened expulsion from Sweden to Iraq, where she alleges she would be at risk of ill-treatment as a single woman of Mandaean denomination (a vulnerable ethnic/religious minority).