The High Court has quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision rejecting a Nigerian woman’s asylum appeal, finding that the Tribunal relied on a country guidance document about her alleged kidnapping without giving her an opportunity to comment on it.
Mr Justice Cooke delivered the judicial review judgment on 9 December 2009. The court ordered certiorari quashing the Tribunal’s decision of 20 March 2007 and said the appeal should be re-examined. It did not decide whether the applicant qualified for refugee status or determine the merits of her asylum claim.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as A. S. O., claimed she fled Nigeria after creditors of her late father threatened her over money they said he owed. She said her home was set on fire in 2006, killing one of her children, and that she was kidnapped and held for five days by the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC). She also said police did not pursue her complaints. These were her claims, not findings made by the High Court.
An officer’s report under section 13 of the Refugee Act 1996 disbelieved the core account and recommended that she not be declared a refugee. On appeal, however, the Tribunal gave no express finding on credibility. It upheld the negative recommendation on the grounds that Nigerian state protection was available and that the applicant could relocate within Nigeria.
The High Court found that a police complaints hierarchy did not, by itself, establish effective state protection. It also found that the Tribunal member relied on a UK Home Office operational guidance note stating that Nigerian police took appropriate action against groups such as the OPC. The note had not been put to the applicant at the hearing, and she had no chance to comment or provide contrary information.
The court held that this failure breached the notice requirement in section 16(8) of the 1996 Act and flawed the process behind the state-protection finding. It said the relocation finding was not independent in the circumstances: if the alleged OPC kidnapping had occurred, the Tribunal needed to consider whether the group could threaten the applicant in the proposed place of relocation.
The court also noted a mismatch between the Commissioner’s report, which rejected the applicant’s account, and the Tribunal decision, which did not resolve credibility but relied on protection and relocation. The order sends the appeal back for re-examination; the judgment does not itself grant asylum or make a fresh determination.