The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision refusing refugee status to an anonymised Nigerian applicant, finding serious flaws in its assessment of her age and credibility. It ordered the case remitted to the Tribunal for a new hearing before a different member.
The judicial review concerned a Tribunal decision dated 3 March 2010, which had affirmed the Refugee Appeals Commissioner’s recommendation to refuse the application. The applicant sought certiorari. The judgment was delivered by Ms Justice Faherty on 16 April 2015.
The applicant’s account was that she and her mother travelled to the mother’s home village in Edo State in October 2008, where relatives demanded that she undergo female genital mutilation (FGM). She said her mother resisted, both were beaten and kept in a house, and she escaped with help from a family friend. She later claimed she was taken to Ireland, where a man held and sexually exploited her before she escaped. These were claims before the Tribunal, not findings by the High Court.
The Tribunal had rejected the account as not credible, including the explanation for the trip to the village and the escape. It also said, alternatively, that the applicant could relocate within Nigeria, referring to larger cities such as Lagos. The respondents argued that the credibility findings were adequately reasoned and that relocation was a reasonable option.
Justice Faherty found that the Tribunal had not made a clear finding on whether the applicant was a minor or an adult, despite her stated date of birth and a birth certificate she had submitted. That omission mattered because her age could affect the credibility assessment and whether relocation was reasonable in her personal circumstances.
The judge also found that key credibility conclusions relied on speculation or lacked adequate reasons. In particular, the Tribunal treated the trip to the village as implausible without a sound basis for concluding what the mother knew about the purpose of the journey. The High Court also found that the Tribunal’s reasoning about the escape relied on an account that people surrounded the outside of the premises, whereas the applicant’s evidence described people inside the house. Some aspects of the account after the applicant was handed to a man were rejected in bald terms, without specific reasons.
The court did not decide whether the applicant qualified for refugee status or determine the merits of internal relocation. It held that the challenged decision could not stand and quashed it, directing a de novo hearing before a different Tribunal Member.