Scotland’s Court of Sessions, its highest civil court, ruled Wednesday to legalize lock-change evictions against failed asylum seekers.

In this case, a failed asylum seeker tenant sued a landlord that evicted the asylum seeker by changing the locks on the rental unit without a court order. The landlord served the asylum seeker an eviction notice after UK Visas and Immigration denied the asylum application. The notice threatened legal action if the tenants failed to leave the unit after June 13, 2018. However, the landlord instead changed the locks on the unit without a court order to evict the tenant who remained past June 13.

The tenant in the case argued that the eviction violated the tenant’s human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the court interpreted the European Convention to only apply to public entities. The court reasoned that the private landlord who evicted the tenant does not have a duty to protect the rights of an asylum seeker under the European Convention. Instead, the court placed the duty on the Home Secretary that funded housing accommodations for asylum seekers during the asylum process:

The public authority, in the present case the Home Secretary, remains answerable for the discharge of the duty. In the event of judicial review designed to enforce an asylum seeker’s Convention rights, the claim would be made against the Home Secretary, and not against the private provider.

Under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act of 1999, Scotland’s Secretary of State funds housing accommodations for asylum seekers waiting on the asylum application process. The secretary contracts private landlords to provide the accommodations during the application process. However, the secretary’s duty to provide for an asylum seeker ends when an asylum application is denied, leaving many failed asylum seekers vulnerable to lock-change eviction.