Asylum Act

¹Refugees are per­sons who in their nat­ive coun­try or in their coun­try of last res­id­ence are sub­ject to ser­i­ous dis­ad­vant­ages or have a well-foun­ded fear of be­ing ex­posed to such dis­ad­vant­ages for reas­ons of race, re­li­gion, na­tion­al­ity, mem­ber­ship of a par­tic­u­lar so­cial group or due to their polit­ic­al opin­ions.

²Ser­i­ous dis­ad­vant­ages in­clude a threat to life, phys­ic­al in­teg­rity or free­dom as well as meas­ures that ex­ert in­tol­er­able psy­cho­lo­gic­al pres­sure. Motives for seek­ing asylum spe­cif­ic to wo­men must be taken in­to ac­count.

³Per­sons who are sub­ject to ser­i­ous dis­ad­vant­ages or have a well-foun­ded fear of be­ing ex­posed to such dis­ad­vant­ages be­cause they have re­fused to per­form mil­it­ary ser­vice or have deser­ted are not refugees. The pro­vi­sions of the Con­ven­tion of 28 Ju­ly 1951¹ re­lat­ing to the Status of Refugees are re­served.²

⁴Per­sons who claim grounds based on their con­duct fol­low­ing their de­par­ture that are neither an ex­pres­sion nor a con­tinu­ation of a con­vic­tion already held in their nat­ive coun­try or coun­try of ori­gin are not refugees. The pro­vi­sions of the Con­ven­tion of Refugee Con­ven­tion are re­served.³