The High Court quashed a decision refusing a Nigerian woman’s asylum appeal after finding that the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s credibility assessment was tainted by conjecture and that it had not sufficiently considered country information on state protection and internal relocation.
Mr Justice Eagar ordered the appeal to be remitted to a separate member of the Tribunal for determination de novo. The judgment, delivered on 11 February 2015, concerned a judicial review of the Tribunal’s 31 March 2011 decision. The court did not decide the asylum claim itself.
The applicant said she had been orphaned at five and raised by her grandmother in Ilorin, Kwara State. After her grandmother died, she said, she moved in with a neighbour known as Gloria, who made her work in a restaurant and forced her into prostitution. She said Gloria threatened to kill her when she tried to escape, and that she could not safely relocate elsewhere in Nigeria because she knew nobody there.
The Tribunal had rejected her account, citing matters including her inability to name Gloria’s children, uncertainty about when her grandmother died and when the alleged prostitution began, inconsistencies in her account, and her failure to seek asylum while travelling through Turkey. It also considered whether Nigerian authorities could protect her and whether she could relocate within Nigeria. The applicant’s counsel argued that the credibility findings involved conjecture and that the Tribunal had not identified a safe place for relocation. The respondents defended the decision, submitting that state protection and internal relocation were available if her account were accepted.
Justice Eagar said the adverse credibility findings were not based on correct facts free from conjecture or speculation, and that the reasons did not have a legitimate connection to the adverse conclusion. He said the Tribunal had not adequately addressed the applicant’s account of being dependent on a neighbour after her grandmother’s death or relevant country-of-origin information about Nigerian women’s civil liberties.
The court also found that the Tribunal had not sufficiently considered available country information when assessing state protection and relocation. The judge noted evidence about limits on human-rights protections and the practical barriers facing women who relocate, including the applicant’s statement that she had no money and knew nobody in Lagos. He concluded that the Tribunal’s decision should be quashed and the appeal reconsidered by a different member.