Part I - Conclusions

Summary

Research on the common law jurisdictions has described ‘discretion’ reasoning as an ‘adaptive phenomenon’, that is ‘extraordinarily widespread, resistant to challenge and strongly associated with high rejection rates’. Likewise, this is reflected in those high-level European judgments that rejected a ‘discretion’ requirement. They maintained ‘discretion’ logics by allowing for a ‘factual’ finding that a claimant ‘will’ maintain secrecy. This study of asylum judgments concerning sexuality-based claims in Germany, France and Spain suggests that the same conclusions are true of these three civil law jurisdictions.