The High Court has granted S. B. E. leave to seek judicial review of a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision, identifying arguable grounds concerning credibility and the availability of internal relocation in Nigeria.
In a judgment delivered on 28 October 2009, Mr Justice Cooke said the tribunal decision contained a “troubling and regrettable lack of coherence and clarity”. The court focused on the tribunal member’s conclusions that the applicant’s account lacked credibility and that he could relocate within Nigeria if returned.
The judge said it was unclear whether the tribunal had accepted that a crisis had occurred, while also describing the applicant as “simply not telling the truth”. The account discussed in the judgment included claimed kidnapping and ransom demands involving the applicant’s wife, and the loss of his shop and livelihood. These were matters in the claim, not findings by the High Court that the events occurred.
The court also questioned the internal relocation conclusion. The judgment said relocation had not been investigated by the Commissioner or addressed in the Section 13 report, and no part of Nigeria had been identified and assessed as a possible place to relocate. The judge said this raised a substantial ground under Regulation 7 of the European Communities (Eligibility for Protection) Regulations 2006.
A further arguable issue concerned the tribunal member’s view that the applicant travelled for economic reasons rather than to avoid events in Anambra. The judge said an asylum seeker’s ambition to improve his circumstances would not necessarily rule out refugee status if there were also a well-founded fear of persecution. The proposed ground was that the tribunal had failed to consider and explain whether the events it accepted as a crisis gave rise to the applicant’s flight and formed a basis for such a fear.
The ruling was at the leave stage. The court granted permission to pursue reliefs numbered 1, 5 and 6 in the statement of grounds, confined to the internal relocation and credibility grounds described in the judgment. It did not decide whether those grounds would succeed at a substantive hearing or whether the tribunal decision should be quashed. The judge said certiorari would be sufficient if the decision were ultimately found unlawful; costs were reserved.