Government challenged on asylum seeker DNA tests

The UK Government could be acting illegally if it uses DNA testing to try to determine the country of origin of asylum seekers, a leading Scottish human rights campaigner says.

Professor Alan Miller, chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and a top human rights lawyer, said moves to use DNA testing as a permanent part of the asylum application process could be contested in the European Court of Human Rights – reports the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (http://www.scvo.org.uk/).

Professor Miller was speaking at a Scottish Festival of Politics event that debated the legal and moral basis for a recent six month UK Border Agency (UKBA) pilot that used DNA testing in cases where an asylum seeker’s country of origin was in doubt.

The controversial UKBA Human Providence Pilot was aimed at addressing alleged problems of African asylum seekers claiming to come from war-torn Somalia because they were more likely to have their application approved.

However, it was amended at the last minute after an outcry from human rights bodies and scientists who claimed that it wasn’t possible to accurately determine a person’s country of origin from their DNA.

Testing did go ahead but the UKBA argued that it would not be used to determine a person’s right to asylum.

UK Immigration minister Damien Green, who is carrying out a review of the asylum process, has not yet indicated whether the controversial move will be rolled out permanently.

“If the government wants to legislate and put this into the asylum system they are on very, very shaky ground and they would be very susceptible to [being] challenged in the European Court of Human Rights,” said Miller at the event organised by the British Council and the Economic and Social Research Council Genomics Forum.

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