The High Court refused a Nigerian woman leave to seek judicial review of decisions refusing her refugee status, ordering her deportation and later refusing to revoke that order. The court also discharged an interim injunction that had prevented her deportation while the proceedings were pending.
The application concerned the refusal of refugee status notified in November 2009, a deportation order made in September 2011, and the Minister’s refusal to revoke it, notified on 20 June 2012. The woman also challenged the prioritisation of asylum applications from Nigerian nationals and sought constitutional and human-rights declarations concerning the immigration legislation.
The judgment records that the woman said her husband and son had been murdered in Nigeria after her husband’s involvement in a political campaign. The Refugee Appeals Tribunal had found her account not credible, describing it as internally inconsistent and contradictory. The High Court did not reconsider that asylum determination on its merits.
The court held that challenges to the 2009 refusal, the 2011 deportation order and the prioritisation decision were out of time. It found the general judicial-review time limits still applied alongside the special 14-day limit, and noted that no extension of time had been sought. It therefore did not need to determine those substantive challenges. The court also said the woman’s conduct, including leaving her registered address and later seeking revocation of the deportation order, precluded her from impugning earlier decisions.
The challenge to the refusal to revoke the order was within time, but the court found no stateable ground for judicial review. It considered submissions about the woman’s HIV diagnosis and continuing need for daily medication, including a medical report stating she was vulnerable to potentially life-threatening infections. The judge concluded that the Minister had considered the medical material and relevant case law, and that the circumstances did not meet the exceptional threshold required for the Article 8 claim described in the judgment.
The court also rejected the argument that the deportation decision had to be made personally by the Minister, accepting that a civil servant could make it under the Carltona principle. It refused leave on all grounds and discharged the interim injunction. The ruling was a decision on permission to bring judicial review, not a new determination of the underlying refugee claim.