The High Court refused an application to quash a 2007 Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting a mother’s appeal against a recommendation that she and her two children not be recognised as refugees. Mr Justice Cooke delivered judgment on 14 July 2009.
The judicial review had been allowed to proceed on one ground: that the Tribunal failed to consider or expressly refer to country of origin information about Ghana. The court held that this ground was not made out and refused the application. It did not quash the Tribunal decision.
The mother’s asylum claim had initially concerned events in Nigeria, where she said she was born and had lived. She alleged abuse and threats that her eldest child would be used in a ritual sacrifice. Her account was found lacking in credibility by the Refugee Applications Commissioner, whose report also cited discrepancies including an earlier UK asylum application under a different name and date of birth. The Commissioner made a finding that removed the possibility of an oral appeal hearing.
In further submissions lodged in April 2007, the applicants’ representatives advanced for the first time a claim of fear of persecution in Ghana. They argued that the mother, described as a Ghanaian national, could face exploitation and ill-treatment, including being forced back into prostitution, and referred to country information about discrimination, trafficking and other harms. The Tribunal decision acknowledged her Ghanaian nationality and treated the case as involving dual Nigerian and Ghanaian nationality. It noted that she had expressed no fear of persecution in Ghana, and rejected the Nigeria-based claim. The appeal was decided without an oral hearing.
The High Court found that the Ghana material was mentioned in the Tribunal’s list of submissions but was otherwise not addressed. However, the judge concluded that the Tribunal’s duty to assess evidence applied to material relevant to an issue requiring decision. The country information about Ghana was not such material in this case: before the Tribunal, there was no evidence substantiating a particular fear of persecution there, only legal submissions. The court noted that the mother’s later affidavit in the judicial review gave some evidential basis to a Ghana claim, but that evidence came after the Tribunal decision.
The court therefore held that the Tribunal had not erred by failing to assess country information in relation to a hypothetical claim advanced in submissions. The judicial review application was refused.