The European Court of Human Rights has formally asked the Government not to deport a Nigerian woman and her two young daughters to Nigeria until it has considered her arguments against the deportation orders, including that her two daughters face a real risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) if returned.
The letter of request from the ECHR was issued today shortly after a High Court judge’s rejection of Pamela Izevbekhai’s application for an injunction restraining her family’s deportation until the Irish courts have determined her judicial review challenge to the Minister for Justice’s refusal last March to consider her claim for “subsidiary protection” here.
Mr Justice Johh Hedigan ruled there were no exceptional circumstances to justify the injunction. Ms Izevbekhai, who has already lost a baby daughter after the child was forcibly genitally mutilated in Nigeria, and her two children were ordered to report to Balseskin reception centre, Co Dublin.
An earlier judicial review challenge by Ms Izevbekhai to the deportation orders was rejected by Mr Justice Kevin Feeney last January and, in March last, he refused the necessary permission to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court. Ms Izevbekhai’s lawyers have appealed that refusal to the ECHR.
This afternoon, Ms Izevbekhai’s lawyers received a letter from the ECHR stating it had granted their request that the Irish Government should not deport the family until midnight on December 10th 2008 at the earliest to allow the ECHR time to consider the case.
In his judgment earlier, Mr Justice Hedigan ruled the exceptional circumstances that would merit granting an injunction restraining the deportation of Ms Izevbekhai and her daughters, Naomi (7) and Jemima (6) did not exist.
The judge said the family had been through all the stages of the asylum process and had had every opportunity to make out a case for refugee status. The High Court had previously found that an analysis of their files prior to making the deportation orders was conducted in accordance with fair procedures.
He said the family’s claim had been assessed and considered by a significant number of decision makers - the Refugee Appeals Commisisoner, the Refugee Appeals Tribunal and the Minister - and the court had only a limited role when it came to reviewing those previous decisions.
He stressed the court’s role was to judicially review the procedures by which such bodies arrive at their conclusions.
The judge added the risk of FGM was “frequently considered” in the asylum process and was consistently rejected as a grounds for refusing deportation because of the possibility of “internal relocation within a country of colossal size and population such as Nigeria”.
Ms Izevzbekhai went into hiding after the deportation orders were issued in November 2005 but was arrested in Sligo in December 2005 after emerging to see her daughters, who had been put into care when their mother disappeared. She was detained in Mountjoy jail but freed by court order in January 2006.
Ms Izevbekhai has said she left Nigeria in January 2005 due to her husband’s family’s active practice of FGM. Her first daughter Elizabeth died at 17 months from blood loss, which a doctor described as possibly the result of female circumcision performed on the baby.
