The High Court dismissed five Nigerian children’s challenge to deportation orders, ruling that their mother’s asylum application had included them and that the Minister was entitled to treat their applications as refused when hers was refused.
The judicial review concerned orders made on 2 August 2002 against the children. Their mother’s asylum application had been refused, and the Refugee Appeals Authority recommended dismissing her appeal in July 2000. The Minister later made deportation orders for the mother and each child.
The children argued that they had never applied for asylum, or that their individual claims had not been considered. Their solicitor’s affidavit said they feared female genital mutilation if returned to Nigeria. Their mother also said she had not understood her application to cover the children and that they had not had a chance to put forward fears of their own.
The Minister’s department said it had treated the mother’s application as covering her dependent children. The Minister argued that the mother had acted for them and had an opportunity to raise any grounds specific to them during the asylum process.
Justice Michael Peart found that the mother intended her application to include the children. He relied in part on her interview statement that the authorities should “keep us as we can’t go back” and her account that she and the children would be killed if returned. He rejected as not credible the later account that she had feared female genital mutilation for her daughters during the original asylum process, finding that this claim had been raised only after the deportation orders.
The judge held that a parent could apply for asylum on behalf of accompanied dependent children and that the Minister could consider their applications alongside the parent’s. He said the Minister was not required to conduct separate assessments where no separate grounds had been put forward for a child. A child with distinct grounds, however, must be given an opportunity to make an application.
The court concluded that the children’s claims had been refused with their mother’s and that the deportation orders were valid. It dismissed the judicial review challenge. The judgment also endorsed a suggestion that, in future cases, parents be asked expressly whether they want accompanied children’s rights and interests included in their asylum applications.