The High Court refused a mother and child’s judicial review challenge to decisions on their asylum and subsidiary protection applications, finding no good and sufficient reason to extend the time limit for challenging three decisions and no case made out against the fourth.
Mr Justice Cooke’s judgment concerned four decisions: a negative asylum recommendation dated 23 March 2006; the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s rejection of an appeal on 13 July 2006; the Minister’s refusal of refugee status on 21 August 2006; and the Minister’s refusal of subsidiary protection on 27 June 2007. The judicial review proceeding began on 17 July 2007. The court said the statutory time extension issue had to be resolved before it could consider challenges to the first three decisions. That time extension requirement did not apply to the subsidiary protection refusal.
The mother said she had asked for her Irish-born son to have a separate asylum application. The court noted that the child was included as a dependent in the mother’s file and appeal, and that the Minister’s later correspondence was addressed to both. After the refugee status refusal, the mother’s solicitors sought leave to remain for both. They later submitted one subsidiary protection application, which also covered the child.
The judge found that there was no full explanation or convincing excuse for the delay. The court considered that the evidence showed the applicants had pursued humanitarian leave to remain and then subsidiary protection instead of bringing judicial review earlier. It also noted that the mother had been advised in July 2006 that her solicitors saw no grounds for judicial review, and that no separate asylum application for the child was subsequently made.
The judgment also considered the proposed claim that the child faced risk in Nigeria because he was born with a misshapen head and a burn-like mark. The court said this concern had not been raised as a distinct basis for asylum or subsidiary protection before the mother’s affidavit in the judicial review, and that no medical evidence about the condition had been provided. The judge was not satisfied that refusing an extension would exclude consideration of a serious protection claim for the child.
The court refused to extend time for challenges to the first three decisions. It found that the ground against the subsidiary protection refusal had not been made out and refused the judicial review application. The judgment did not determine the underlying protection claims on their merits.