The High Court has refused a challenge by a Nigerian woman and her minor son to the International Protection Appeals Tribunal’s decision to uphold the refusal of her protection application.
The applicants argued that the tribunal had not given adequate reasons for rejecting the claim and had failed to consider relevant country of origin information. Mr Justice Max Barrett rejected both grounds and refused all the reliefs sought.
The woman said she feared violence in Nigeria at the hands or instigation of her husband’s family. Her application for international protection was refused in September 2017. The tribunal heard her appeal in July 2018 and affirmed that refusal in a letter dated 28 March 2019. The judicial review challenged the tribunal’s decision; the High Court did not determine a fresh protection application.
On credibility, the court considered the tribunal’s treatment of changes in the woman’s account about the approximate dates of alleged violence, her son’s reported head injury, her own alleged hospital attendance, and whether she had reported the violence to police. The tribunal found problems with her explanations and inconsistencies in the accounts. The judge held that it was lawful for the tribunal to reach those conclusions. He also said the tribunal was entitled to take account of other adverse credibility findings, although those would probably not have been decisive on their own.
The applicants also alleged a breach of section 28(4) of the International Protection Act 2015 over the tribunal’s consideration of country of origin information. The judge said the tribunal’s decision showed it had considered and understood the relevant facts and circumstances. He held that the statutory requirement was limited to relevant facts about the country of origin, and that decision-makers were not required to discuss country information in a fixed or mechanical way in every case.
The judge said the tribunal could reasonably decide that the perceived fundamental lack of credibility meant a narrative discussion of the country information was unnecessary. He found no legal error in that approach and said he saw no disadvantage to the woman arising from how the tribunal proceeded.
The judgment, delivered on 12 December 2019, refused all relief sought. It did not overturn the tribunal’s decision.