The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing an asylum claim by an anonymised Nigerian applicant, finding errors in its assessment of credibility and internal relocation. The matter was referred back to the Tribunal for reconsideration by a different member.
In a judgment delivered on 17 April 2015, Mr Justice Barr also extended time for the applicant to bring the judicial review proceedings. The State did not oppose that extension.
The applicant said she was 15 when she arrived in Ireland in January 2007. She claimed that, after her parents died, her uncle tried to force her to marry a man she called “the Chief”. She said she was abducted after refusing, escaped from the man’s house and later travelled to Ireland with help from a woman she called “aunty”. These were the applicant’s account of events, not findings made by the High Court.
The Tribunal had made adverse credibility findings, including about a threatening note, the applicant’s inability to name the woman who helped her after a road accident, and the authenticity of a letter and identity card attributed to the African Refugee Foundation. The documents contained discrepancies, including differences in the account of whether the applicant had been raped, how long she stayed at the foundation and when she left her uncle’s home.
The High Court held that the Tribunal had not adequately accounted for the applicant’s minority and circumstances when assessing parts of her account. It also found that the Tribunal should have taken active steps to investigate the authenticity of the foundation’s letter and identity card. It could, for example, have contacted the organisation using details in the letter or on its website. The judgment said those inquiries had not been made; it did not determine whether the documents were genuine.
The court also quashed the Tribunal’s finding that the applicant could relocate within Nigeria. The Tribunal had relied on an extract from a British-Danish fact-finding report. Justice Barr said it had presented a misleading picture by omitting material about the limited availability and duration of women’s shelters and the practical barriers facing women without money or family support.
The Tribunal had also failed to give due weight to the applicant’s circumstances as a teenager who, on her account, had no family in Nigeria apart from the uncle she was fleeing. The High Court’s ruling was a judicial review of the Tribunal decision; it did not itself determine the asylum claim or grant refugee status.