The High Court refused a mother’s application for leave to seek judicial review of a decision rejecting her and her infant son’s asylum claims, finding that she had not raised arguable grounds of a substantial nature. The court extended the time limit for bringing the application, accepting that the short delay had been adequately explained.
The applicants sought to challenge the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s decision of 28 March 2006, which affirmed the recommendation that they not be granted refugee status. The mother argued that the tribunal made factual errors and failed to consider all the evidence when assessing her credibility.
She had said she fled Nigeria after her husband, a political activist, was kidnapped in April 2005. Her accounts differed on where she stayed after his disappearance, how long she remained there and whether he contacted her. At the tribunal hearing, she described spending about three months in Sagamu with help from private security personnel, then six weeks with her parents in Mamu. She also said her husband called her while she was in Sagamu and that men later threatened her if she did not produce him.
The tribunal rejected the asylum appeal, citing four main credibility concerns: she had not sought state protection; her accounts of the time spent in Sagamu and Mamu included periods in which she was not harmed; the alleged political opponents could have targeted her during those months; and her account of travelling without documents through international airports was not considered plausible.
In the judicial review application, the mother argued that the tribunal had misunderstood where she was in hiding, relied on conjecture about her escape through a back window, and failed to address her hearing evidence that people looking for her had beaten her father, who later died. The High Court found no factual error in the tribunal’s account of the time she spent in Sagamu and Mamu. It said the credibility assessment rested on several stated reasons, including her travel account, and did not involve conjecture.
The judge noted that the father-related allegation was raised at the hearing but not followed up by the mother’s own counsel, and said the tribunal’s failure to refer to it was not extraordinary in that context. The court concluded that no arguable grounds of a substantial nature had been established and refused leave. It did not grant the requested judicial review or overturn the tribunal’s decision.