The High Court has rejected a Nigerian woman’s application for judicial review of the Minister’s refusal to grant her subsidiary protection, finding no legal error in the decision.
The applicant sought to have the refusal quashed under the European Communities (Eligibility for Protection) Regulations 2006. Her central argument was that medical reports should have led the Minister to consider whether she had already suffered female genital mutilation (FGM), and whether that amounted to compelling reasons to grant protection.
The woman had said she feared being forced to undergo FGM if returned to Nigeria, but denied having undergone the procedure. The judgment records that a doctor’s reports described an unusual swelling or lesion where the clitoris would normally be and said no clitoral tissue was present after surgery. The reports did not conclude that she had undergone FGM. The court said the information was too inconclusive to require the Minister to assume she had been subjected to it, contrary to her own account.
The Minister’s assessment also addressed the threats she described, her personal circumstances, medical information, protection options in Nigeria and the possibility of relocation. The court rejected arguments that the Minister had failed to consider relevant information or her individual circumstances. It said the key issue was whether this applicant faced a real risk of serious harm, not whether FGM occurred in Nigeria generally.
The court also rejected a submission that she might suffer continuing persecution or trauma from FGM. It found that this case had not been put to the Minister and that the applicant had not said she had undergone the procedure. The court further concluded that the medical reports did not establish compelling reasons for protection based on previous harm.
The proceedings concerned the refusal of subsidiary protection, not the separate deportation decision. The judgment records that a deportation order had been made and that an earlier application to challenge it was refused leave. An interim injunction had restrained deportation pending the hearing of this case. The court’s final order was to reject the judicial review application; it did not grant the relief sought to quash the protection refusal.