The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing refugee status to an anonymised Nigerian applicant, finding that the Tribunal’s reasons were unclear and did not address core parts of his claim. The case was sent back for a hearing before a different Tribunal member.
K.B. sought judicial review of the Tribunal’s decision of 3 March 2009, which had affirmed a recommendation that he not receive refugee status. The challenge was brought outside the required 14-day period. Mr Justice McDermott’s judgment, delivered on 2 May 2014, records that an extension of time was required, but does not state a separate ruling on that issue.
K.B. said he feared the Ogboni Society, which he claimed had threatened him with death unless he joined. He said his mother had opposed his initiation and died in 2005 in circumstances he believed were connected to the Society. The judgment notes there was no evidence before the Tribunal about her death or its cause. K.B. also said Society members had traced and threatened him after he moved to Kaduna and when he returned to Lagos. He had not reported the threats or his suspicions about his mother’s death to police, saying he believed Society members were among them.
The Tribunal’s only express credibility finding identified by the High Court was that it stretched credibility to suggest K.B. could return from Kaduna to Nigeria and spend about two and a half years in Lagos without being found by the Society. The High Court said that reasoning misstated his account: he had said he was found and threatened during that period. The Tribunal also said he could have remained safely in Lagos or relocated elsewhere in Nigeria, but did not explain those conclusions or assess which parts of his account it accepted.
The court found the Tribunal had not assessed whether K.B.’s stated fear was subjectively held and objectively justified, whether his reason for not seeking state protection was reasonable, or whether relocation was possible in light of the events it considered credible. The judge rejected the respondents’ invitation to infer or supply findings that the Tribunal had not clearly made, saying that would expand the decision and require the court to speculate about its reasons.
The court held the decision fundamentally flawed, quashed it and remitted the matter for a hearing by a different Tribunal member. The judgment does not determine whether K.B. is entitled to refugee status or make findings that his allegations against the Society were true.