SV v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] CSOH 88

On 26 September 2025, Lord Lake issued his Opinion in SV v Secretary of State for the Home Department. Bilaal Shabbir, Advocate, appeared for the successful Petitioner, instructed by McGlashan MacKay Solicitors.

The case concerned the Home Office’s certification of the Petitioner’s Article 8 claim as “clearly unfounded” under section 94 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. The Petitioner, a gay man from India, argued that he would face very significant obstacles to reintegration if returned. The Respondent argued that there was no basis to depart from the Country Guidance case MD (same-sex oriented males: risk) India CG [2014] UKUT 65 (IAC), which had rejected the risk of persecution to gay men in India.

Lord Lake drew a distinction between a protection claim and an Article 8 claim. His Lordship held that Country Guidance cases may not be determinative in the context of an Article 8 claim certified as “clearly unfounded”. While Country Guidance is authoritative on risk of persecution, it does not decide whether there are “very significant obstacles to integration”. His Lordship concluded that it could not be said “that there is no possibility that a Tribunal would accept that, on return to India, the petitioner would face very significant obstacles to reintegration.”

The Court therefore reduced the Home Office’s decision.

This judgment is a welcome clarification on the limits of Country Guidance and the proper scope of certification decisions in Article 8 cases.

The published judgment can be found here:
https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/media/xzebjyhz/2025csoh88-petition-of-sv-for-judicial-review.pdf