The High Court has refused a Nigerian mother and her four children’s application for judicial review of a decision denying them international protection. The court found that the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) had a clear evidential basis for its credibility findings and that its questioning did not make the process unfair.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Conleth Bradley on 13 February 2025, concerned an IPAT decision of 4 January 2023. That decision affirmed the International Protection Officer’s recommendation that the family receive neither refugee status nor subsidiary protection.
The mother’s protection claim was based on her account that her husband attended the Lekki Toll Gate protest in Nigeria on 20 October 2020 and recorded security forces shooting protesters. She said soldiers later searched the family home for her husband and the video, and that she fled Nigeria with her children. These were allegations in her protection claim, not findings made by the High Court.
The IPAT rejected key parts of that account, citing inconsistencies about the husband’s contact with her and whether he still had the video. The family challenged the tribunal’s conduct of its November 2022 hearing, arguing that repeated questions and propositions put to the mother through an interpreter were unfair and lacked an evidential basis. The State respondents argued that the tribunal had considered inconsistent evidence and acted within its inquisitorial role.
Justice Bradley said the judicial review court’s role was to examine whether the decision-making process was legally sound, not to substitute its own view of the protection claim. He concluded that the IPAT’s credibility assessment was based on correct facts and cogent reasons, and that its questioning was consistent with the tribunal’s inquisitorial function. He refused the application for judicial review.
The court proposed to list the matter on 27 February 2025 to deal with final orders, including costs. The judgment does not state the outcome of that later listing.