The High Court extended the time for an asylum applicant to bring a judicial review challenge, but refused leave after finding no basis to intervene in the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s decision not to recommend refugee status.
In a judgment delivered on 19 March 2015, Ms Justice Stewart said the applicant had given good and sufficient reasons for missing the 14-day deadline. His representatives had asked the Minister for Justice to consider granting refugee status after the tribunal’s decision, believing the Minister had discretion to do so. The court later clarified in another case that the Minister was not obliged to consider such a request. The Minister acknowledged one letter but did not address the requested assurance about a possible time objection; the tribunal replied that it was functus officio. The High Court extended the time for the judicial review leave application.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as U.O.A. [Nigeria], was born in Nigeria in 1994 and had intellectual and learning difficulties, microcephaly, and expressive and receptive language difficulties. His claim had been considered following an independent investigation by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner. The tribunal affirmed the recommendation against refugee status in a decision dated 6 September 2010, sent with a cover letter dated 11 October 2010.
The tribunal accepted that the applicant could face discrimination in Nigeria because of his disabilities, but found it did not amount to persecution under the Refugee Convention. It also rejected as unsubstantiated his claim that he would face persecution because he was the child of a Muslim-Christian marriage, linking that claim to his parents’ asylum claims, which had been found not credible.
The applicant argued that the tribunal had mishandled country information about discrimination and state protection, failed to follow a prior tribunal decision, and wrongly relied on legislation as evidence of protection. He also argued that non-governmental organisations could not substitute for state protection. The respondent said the prior case was distinguishable and that the tribunal’s references to NGOs concerned support services, not protection from persecution.
Justice Stewart found that the tribunal had adequately assessed the claim and country information. She said discrimination alone did not require international protection unless it reached the level of persecution. The applicant’s account, she said, focused on the lower standard of treatment and services he might receive in Nigeria. The court therefore refused leave to proceed with the judicial review. It did not quash the tribunal decision or grant refugee status.