The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing refugee status to an anonymised Nigerian woman and her daughter, and ordered a fresh consideration by a different tribunal member.
The case was a telescoped judicial review of the tribunal’s 20 October 2010 decision, which affirmed the Refugee Applications Commissioner’s recommendation to refuse the claims. The woman said she had been trafficked to Ireland in 2006 and forced into prostitution. The tribunal accepted her account as credible and found that, as a trafficking victim, she could fall within a particular social group for refugee status purposes. It nevertheless concluded that Nigerian authorities could protect the applicants and that they could relocate within Nigeria.
The applicants challenged the decision, arguing that the tribunal had selectively assessed country information, failed to properly examine relocation in light of the woman’s circumstances, and did not consider the past-persecution provision in Regulation 5(2) of the 2006 regulations.
The High Court rejected the challenge to the state-protection assessment. It held that the tribunal could reasonably conclude from the evidence and country information that protection would be available in Nigeria. It also found that the tribunal’s assessment that the applicants could avoid the risk from the trafficker by moving to Lagos or Abuja was an objective appraisal open to it.
However, the court said the tribunal had not carried out the careful assessment required to decide whether relocation would be reasonable for this woman. The decision did not adequately weigh her medical and psychological difficulties, the effects of her past persecution, her limited education, lack of family support and circumstances as a single mother. The court said the reference to possible access to shelters, medical facilities and counselling did not amount to an informed assessment of how her needs would be met in Lagos or Abuja.
The court also found that Regulation 5(2) required the tribunal to consider whether the woman’s past persecution and its consequences could, on their own, provide compelling reasons to recognise eligibility for protection, even if future persecution was unlikely. The tribunal had quoted the provision and recorded the applicants’ submissions, but had not conducted that inquiry. The court held that this failure rendered the decision unlawful.
The court formally granted leave in the telescoped proceedings, quashed the tribunal’s decision and remitted the matter for de novo consideration by a different Refugee Appeals Tribunal member. Its ruling did not itself grant refugee status. The state-protection finding remained lawful, but could not sustain the decision given the failures on relocation and Regulation 5(2).