The High Court has refused substantive relief to a Nigerian woman challenging the rejection of her asylum appeal, while granting leave to pursue judicial review on amended grounds. The case was adjourned so the parties could consider any consequential applications; any party intending to apply was directed to give the others advance particulars.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as S.I., said she came to Ireland in 2003 after her husband’s death and faced pressure from his brother to marry him under tribal customs. She said she had been brought to Ireland through trafficking and made to perform unpaid domestic work and mind children for five years. Her account also included allegations of domestic servitude, false imprisonment and forced labour. The judgment describes gaps in the detail she provided, including that she could not name the children.
Her asylum application, made in January 2013, was rejected by the Refugee Applications Commissioner in February. The Refugee Appeals Tribunal dismissed her appeal in July 2013. She then sought judicial review, arguing, among other things, that the tribunal’s assessment of whether she could relocate within Nigeria was flawed and that it should have considered the alleged trafficking and servitude under regulation 5(2) of the 2006 protection regulations.
The court rejected the challenges. It held that the tribunal could consider internal relocation as an alternative ground even after finding no objectively well-founded fear of persecution. It also found that the tribunal had considered the applicant’s personal circumstances and that the case did not establish that HIV treatment was available only in limited parts of Nigeria. The court said UNHCR guidelines relied on by the applicant were not binding legal instruments.
On regulation 5(2), the judge held that the rider concerning compelling reasons from past persecution or serious harm arises only where there has first been a finding of persecution or serious harm, as applicable. The tribunal had found no objectively well-founded fear of persecution in Nigeria. The court also said the alleged events in Ireland did not establish persecution for this purpose: the applicant had not shown that the State was unable or unwilling to protect her. The judgment did not determine that the alleged servitude occurred as described.
The judge observed that the Minister, when considering subsidiary protection or humanitarian leave, was not automatically bound to accept the account of servitude as set out in the tribunal decision and could investigate it further. The court did not decide the validity of the regulation 5(2) rider, because that issue was not necessary to resolve the case.