The High Court dismissed a judicial review proceeding challenging the Refugee Applications Commissioner’s rejection of an infant’s asylum claim, ruling that the available statutory appeal was an adequate route to address the issues raised.
In a judgment delivered on 19 December 2011, Mr Justice Cooke allowed the respondents’ motion to dismiss the proceeding. The motion concerned an application for leave to seek judicial review of a report made under section 13 of the Refugee Act 1996. The court said the leave application was bound to fail, both because substantial grounds had not been shown and because the statutory appeal should be pursued instead.
The infant applicant, identified in the judgment as M.A.A., was born in Ireland. The judgment gives two possible birth dates: 25 October 2010, according to the asylum application, or 28 January 2011, according to the section 13 report. Her mother, a Nigerian national, had come to Ireland in August 2005 and her own asylum claim had been rejected in 2005.
The claim made for the child was based on the mother’s stated fear that, if they returned to Nigeria, the child would face pressure from family and village members to undergo forcible circumcision. The Commissioner’s report rejected the claim, citing the child’s lack of past persecution, the availability of state protection if the mother opposed circumcision, and the possibility of relocating elsewhere in Nigeria, including Edo State.
Justice Cooke described most proposed judicial review grounds as generic and unconnected to specific flaws in the report. He noted that the grounds did not identify particular breaches of protection rules, explain why the statutory appeal would be ineffective, or specify how further country information would corroborate the mother’s account. The judgment also said the claim that a draft report had to be provided for comment before adoption had been rejected in earlier High Court cases.
A notice of appeal to the Tribunal had been lodged as a precaution. The court said the issues identified—general risk information and the availability of local protection if the family relocated—could be dealt with adequately and more conveniently through that appeal. It did not reach a definitive conclusion on whether the judicial review had been brought as a delaying tactic, and it did not decide the underlying risk claim. The order dismissed the proceeding.