Asylum seeker with AIDS loses fight against relocation within the UK.

An English court has upheld the decision to relocate an asylum seeker living with AIDS from London to Leeds. The court decided that the public interest in housing asylum seekers where accommodation is available outweighed the woman's interest in remaining in London, where she had an established support network, including medical care. The government has undertaken not to implement the order until her application for asylum is ruled on.

UK: Welsh court reduces sentence, cites HIV status.

A Welsh appeal court has reduced the sentence handed down to an offender because of his HIV status, despite his lengthy criminal record. The court reduced the sentence from five to three-and-a-half years' imprisonment.

US: court rules deportation of HIV-positive Dominican does not violate convention against torture.

The US District Court for New York has upheld a tribunal decision deporting an HIV-positive Dominican national. The court held that the tribunal did not err in finding that Rogelio Reyes-Sanchez had failed to show that he would more likely than not be subject to torture if deported. The court agreed that evidence suggesting that people living with HIV/AIDS may receive substandard medical treatment from public and private hospitals in the Dominican Republic di not constitute evidence of torture.

Australia: court orders doctors to pay damages to woman who contracted HIV from her husband.

IN a case that received extensive media coverage, the New South Wales Supreme Court has found two doctors negligent for failing to take steps to make a bride aware that she was at risk as a result of her prospective husband's HIV infection. The court awarded the woman AUD$727,437 in damages. The couple had attended the physicians together to be tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, but had received their test results separately.