Nigerian mother loses court challenge

THE High Court has dismissed a legal challenge aimed at preventing the deportation of a Nigerian woman who claims her two daughters are at risk of serious harm due to female genital mutilation (FGM) if returned to Nigeria.

Yesterday, Mr Justice Brian McGovern refused an application by Pamela Izevbekhai and her daughters, Naomi, 7, and Jemima, 6, to set aside a decision by the Justice Minister not to consider their claim for “subsidiary protection”.

Following the judgment Ms Izevbekhai said that an appeal to the Supreme Court was likely.

The family’s deportation remains on hold as a result of a request to the Government from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which is considering the case.

The family had claimed the minister had erred in law in March of last year by refusing to grant them subsidiary protection.

They claimed the minister wrongly found that material submitted by them as part of that application was “similar in content” to information submitted on their behalf in 2005 and did not constitute new information.

Counsel on behalf of the minister had opposed the application and argued that the decision not to grant subsidiary protection was correct. Subsidiary protection is designed to give protection to individuals who are not entitled to refugee status, but who otherwise need international protection on the grounds of the situation that exists in their home country, where if returned they would face a real risk of harm.

However Mr Justice McGovern found that there was nothing new in material advanced by the family, which included statements from medical practitioners and human rights groups about FGM in Nigeria, emphasising that the two children’s lives are at serious risk due to the threat of FGM, as part of their application for subsidiary protection.

The judge said that information relied on in the proceedings was not “new facts, but amounted to “amplification” of information previously submitted and considered.

The judge held the family “did not disclose a significant change in material circumstances to those that existed at the time of the making of the deportation order in 2005”, and that there was nothing irrational about the minister’s decision of there being no grounds for him to exercise his discretion.

The judge also held that the minister had given “sufficient reasons” for his decision. The judge also rejected the claim that the minister had fettered his discretion in the matter, but rather had correctly applied the law.

Ms Izevbekhai, who claims her in-laws wish to perform FGM on her children, lost her first child as a result of blood loss which doctors say was probably a result of FGM being performed. Her husband and son remain in Nigeria.

She went into hiding after deportation orders were issued in November 2005 but was arrested in Sligo in December 2005. She was later freed by court order in January 2006.

A legal challenge to the deportations was dismissed in the High Court last January and Mr Justice Kevin Feeney refused leave to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court.

Last November Mr Justice John Hedigan found there was no reason to grant an injunction stopping the deportation, on the same day the ECHR requested the Irish Government not to proceed with it because it said it wanted to consider the woman’s arguments.