The High Court has dismissed a judicial review brought for a Nigerian minor challenging the refusal of subsidiary protection and leave to remain, and the deportation order made in his case.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys gave judgment on 19 April 2018. The applicant, identified in the judgment as S.W.I.M.S. (Nigeria), was born in Ireland in September 2010. His parents applied for asylum on his behalf the following month. Asylum was refused in February 2011; applications for subsidiary protection and leave to remain were refused in July that year, and a deportation order followed on 9 August. The judgment says the child was deported.
The judicial review proceedings were filed on 16 September 2011. Leave to bring them was granted on 9 October 2017, when additional grounds were also permitted. The principal relief sought was to quash the subsidiary protection refusal and deportation order.
The applicant’s barrister argued that country information about Nigeria had been read selectively and that the Minister’s conclusions were irrational or insufficiently supported. The central argument concerned whether the Nigerian state could protect people from Muslim fanatics. The judge said the Minister had addressed state protection and found that the conclusion about protection, the police and judicial system, and the rule of law was not unreasonable.
The judge also rejected arguments that the application’s generic legal grounds should succeed. He said the 2011 judicial review rules applied because leave was granted after they came into force, and that raising an EU law issue did not itself disapply domestic procedural rules.
A further difficulty was that the original protection and leave application had not argued that Nigeria lacked a functioning police force or judiciary. The judge said an applicant’s failure to raise a point with the decision-maker was relevant when assessing the Minister’s decision. He also said unpleaded issues, including internal relocation, could not provide grounds to quash it.
The court dismissed the application. The judgment does not describe a separate order on costs.