The High Court has refused a mother and daughter’s application to quash decisions denying them subsidiary protection, finding that the Minister’s assessment did not offend the principle of rationality and that no cogent argument showed a breach of fair procedures.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Faherty on 27 March 2015, concerned only the subsidiary protection decisions. The applicants’ challenges to decisions on leave to remain under section 3(6) of the Immigration Act 1999 and to deportation orders were adjourned. They had also withdrawn their challenge to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s decision on refugee status.
The mother, whose daughter was born in Ireland, claimed Somali nationality and said she had faced attacks in Somalia. The Minister refused subsidiary protection after concluding that the mother was not Somali. The decision relied on information from UK authorities that she had used a Tanzanian passport to obtain a UK visa, as well as a language analysis report finding that she spoke a variety of Swahili not found in Somalia. The daughter’s application was refused on the basis that her mother was not Somali and she was entitled to Tanzanian citizenship.
The applicants argued that the Minister had not adequately considered the mother’s explanation: that an agent arranged a Tanzanian passport and UK visa as part of her journey to safety. They also challenged the significance of the language report, which placed the variety of Swahili in Kenya, not Tanzania, and argued that the Minister had not established that Tanzania would accept them.
The court was not persuaded. It found that the information about the passport and visa could rationally support the conclusion that the mother was not Somali. Material submitted about alleged fraud in visa processing did not identify problems with the system in Tanzania or Kenya, where applications were processed, and was not strong enough to require the Minister to explain why it did not change his view. The language report’s finding that the mother did not speak a variety of Somali found in Somalia could also be considered, even though it pointed to Kenya rather than Tanzania.
The judge held that, once the mother’s claim to Somali nationality was rejected, the Minister was not required, for the subsidiary protection decision, to prove her nationality as another country’s national. The court dismissed the challenge to the refusals of subsidiary protection. It made no ruling in this judgment on the still-adjourned challenges concerning leave to remain or deportation.