The High Court granted W. M. M. leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision that upheld a recommendation against granting her refugee status. The ruling did not determine the judicial review or decide whether she qualified for protection.
The applicant, a Nigerian woman who arrived in Ireland in October 2006, said she had suffered prolonged sexual abuse, including rape, by her father and his associates, and feared further persecution if returned. The Refugee Applications Commissioner accepted her account as credible but recommended against declaring her a refugee. The Tribunal also accepted her account as credible, but concluded that state protection could be available in Nigeria and that she could avoid the feared persecution by relocating within the country.
The applicant challenged the Tribunal’s reliance on internal relocation, including its reference to Port Harcourt. Her submissions were that the Tribunal had not identified and investigated a particular relocation site as required by Regulation 7 of the European Communities (Eligibility for Protection) Regulations 2006, and that Port Harcourt was first raised in the decision after the hearing, without giving her a chance to comment. She also pointed to conditions in the Delta region and argued that the site’s safety and suitability had not been examined.
The respondents accepted that Port Harcourt had not been mentioned at the hearing, but argued that the regulations did not require identification of a particular location and that the city was cited only as an example. The court was not satisfied that this answered the concerns. It found an arguably substantial ground that the Tribunal had failed to comply with Regulation 7 and fair procedures in reaching its relocation conclusion.
The court also granted leave on a ground challenging the Tribunal’s conclusion that state protection might reasonably be available. It noted that the decision accepted information describing limited protection for victims of rape and domestic violence, while also referring to a procedure that the applicant should use and support from non-governmental organisations. The court rejected a separate argument that the Tribunal had treated NGO assistance itself as state protection.
The judge said the state-protection issue had to be considered alongside the unresolved relocation question and the applicant’s accepted personal history. If relocation could not be sustained, her return to the area where her father and his associates operated might affect the assessment of whether effective protection would be accessible there.
The court limited the leave granted to specified reliefs in paragraphs B, D, E and F of section 4 of the proposed statement of grounds; reliefs A and C were deemed unnecessary. It granted leave on two grounds: the alleged failures in identifying and assessing an internal relocation site, including the late reference to Port Harcourt, and the alleged error in the state-protection assessment under Regulation 5(2).