A Nigerian man who claimed his family was attacked and his mother killed after his Muslim father converted to Christianity has lost his High Court case over being refused subsidiary protection here.
The man came here in early 2012 and went to the High Court after the International Protection Appeal Tribunal found his account of events was not credible.
In a recently published judgment, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys rejected his appeal over that decision. Aged in his thirties, the man claimed his mother was a Christian and his father Muslim and, as a result of his father later converting to Christianity, the family were attacked and his mother was killed.
He also claimed the church where his father worshipped was bombed in 2011. Following that, he went to the UK and then to Ireland. In early 2012, he applied for asylum but his application was deemed withdrawn when, contrary to legal requirements, he left his direct provision accommodation without a forwarding address.
A deportation order was made in March 2017 but was revoked because he had applied for subsidiary protection. When interviewed in June 2017, he was unable to give dates of many of the key incidents of his account and said he was “not mentally ok”, the judge noted.
The IPAT later upheld a finding by the International Protection Office his account was not credible. The IPAT member said his known and externally verified actions showed “his word is not a trustworthy source” and no medical or psychological evidence was proffered by him.
Rejected
The judge rejected arguments the man’s claims were dismissed “out of hand” and said they were “simply rejected”. It was notable the man had provided no medical evidence of mental illness or disability, he said.
The man’s claim of breach of the UNCHR handbook was “not cognisable” in Irish law and he also had made out no adequate claim under the European Convention of Human Rights or Charter of Fundamental Freedoms.
A “fatal obstacle” to the man’s claim was his failure to make any point to the Tribunal about his mental incompetence, the judge said. While that failure meant the man could not make that point to the court, the judge said he had considered the point “such as it is”.
The tribunal finding there was “not a shred of evidence” for “mental weakness” was a finding open to it, he said. There was not and still is no evidence the man has a medical condition, he said. While it was argued there was a “shared duty” between the man and tribunal in that regard, including concerning any “mistake” by his lawyers before the tribunal, that argument “did not get off the ground”.
The tribunal is not a fully inquisitorial body but operates a well-established shared duty which does not displace an applicant’s primary responsibility for assembling the elements of their claim that are personal to them, he said. Where there is failure in that regard, the State has “only a limited role” in supplying the deficit.
