The High Court has quashed the Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting a Nigerian woman’s appeal for refugee status, finding that the Tribunal reached a significant adverse conclusion about her credibility without giving her an opportunity to respond.
In a judgment delivered on 7 April 2006, Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan held that the Tribunal should have put to the applicant the matters it relied on to conclude that she had left Ibadan voluntarily to live with her boyfriend in Lagos. The applicant’s account was that she fled after her paternal uncles threatened her when she refused a forced marriage. Whether she had been forced to leave was material to the Tribunal’s assessment of whether she could obtain protection within Nigeria.
The applicant also said her boyfriend became abusive after she suffered miscarriages and that she feared she would be used in a ritual. She left his home and sought refuge at a church. The Tribunal rejected her asylum appeal in November 2004, affirming the recommendation that her claim be refused. It considered her account not credible and concluded that she could have accessed internal protection in Nigeria.
The judge also found that information used by the Tribunal had not been disclosed to the applicant. It included a UNHCR position paper on fear of being “charmed”, material about African culture and family, and information from the Garda National Immigration Bureau about procedures at Dublin Airport. The judge considered the airport information particularly significant because the Tribunal relied on it to reject the applicant’s account of her arrival and passage through immigration, affecting its overall credibility assessment.
The judgment noted a factual error in the Tribunal decision: it twice described the person who helped the applicant at the church as her father’s brother, when the source account identified him as a friend of her deceased father. The Tribunal acknowledged the error and proposed correcting it, but no correction had been made by the hearing. The court considered the decision as it then stood.
The court granted certiorari, quashing the decision on the terms specified in the statement of grounds. It did not decide whether the applicant qualified for refugee status; the matter was to be reheard. The judge also rejected arguments that the applicant was entitled to family reunification through her mother’s case or to a presumption of refugee status because her mother had been granted asylum. The applicant’s claim had to be determined separately, while her mother’s history and decision remained relevant to its overall assessment.