The High Court has refused N. J. leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision that upheld the refusal of her application for refugee status. The court found that she had not shown substantial grounds for challenging the tribunal’s decision.
The application concerned the tribunal’s decision of 3 July 2007. N. J. argued that the tribunal had failed to properly consider three reports from SPIRASI, which described symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder and recorded her account of rape during detention in Nigeria. Her counsel submitted that the reports raised questions about her memory and ability to give evidence, and that the tribunal should have asked about her capacity to do so.
The tribunal had made no express adverse credibility finding. It considered that, even accepting N. J.’s account, the danger she feared had passed after her father’s death, and that she could relocate within Nigeria, including to Lagos. It also found that she could seek protection there.
The court said the SPIRASI reports described a distressed and fragile woman, but did not suggest that she was unable to give reliable evidence. At her appeal hearing, she had described the events in Nigeria, including the rapes, and had expanded on her earlier account. The judge also found that the tribunal had considered the reports, referring to them in its decision and addressing the possibility of psychological treatment in Lagos.
The court noted that neither N. J. nor her representatives had asked the tribunal to treat her as incapable of giving reliable evidence or supplied a psychiatric report addressing that issue. The judge said applicants must put their case fully before the decision-maker at the appropriate time.
The tribunal’s main reason for refusing refugee status was its conclusion that internal relocation was available and that N. J. could not be said to be unwilling or unable to obtain protection in Nigeria. The court considered that conclusion reasonable on the evidence before the tribunal, including that she had spent time in another Nigerian village and in Lagos without further contact from the men who had harmed her.
The court refused leave to apply for judicial review. It did not grant leave or quash the tribunal’s decision.