THE HIGH Court has dismissed a legal challenge aimed at preventing the deportation of a Nigerian mother who claims her two young daughters are at risk of serious harm due to female genital mutilation (FGM) if returned to Nigeria.
Mr Justice Brian McGovern yesterday refused the application by Pamela Izevbekhai and her daughters, Naomi (8) and Jemima (6), to set aside the Minister for Justice’s refusal to grant them “subsidiary protection” here on grounds including that no new information had been presented to support the claim.
In his decision, the judge found material presented by the family did not disclose any significant difference between circumstances now and in 2005 when the deportation orders were made.
The Minister had given sufficient reasons for his decision, the judge also ruled. Rejecting claims the Minister had fettered his discretion in the matter, the judge found the Minister correctly applied the law.
The family claimed the Minister had erred in law in March last year by refusing to grant them subsidiary protection. They claimed the Minister wrongly found material submitted by them as part of that application was “similar in content” to information submitted on their behalf in 2005.
Subsidiary protection is designed to give protection to individuals who are not entitled to refugee status but who face, if deported, a real risk of suffering harm in their home country.
Mr Justice McGovern ruled there was nothing new in the material advanced by the family, which included statements from medical practitioners and human rights groups about the practice of FGM in Nigeria. They expressed the view that the two girls’ lives are at serious risk due to FGM. The information being relied on did not constitute new facts but rather amounted to amplification and corroboration of information previously submitted, the judge said.
The Irish Refugee Council yesterday expressed disappointment at the decision. It said Ms Izevbekhai has been consistently courageous in publicly highlighting the risks her daughters face if returned to Nigeria.
“We urge the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Dermot Ahern, to use his discretion to grant the family the right to stay in Ireland and to avail of the protection that is available to them so that they can stop living in fear. As children they deserve to be safe,” the statement concluded.
Ms Izevbekhai claimed her in-laws wish to perform FGM on her children. Her husband and son remain in Nigeria.
She went into hiding after the deportation orders were issued in November 2005 but was arrested in Sligo in December 2005 after she emerged to see her daughters, who had been put into care when their mother disappeared. She was held in Mountjoy Jail but freed by court order in January 2006.
A legal challenge to the deportations, grounded on fears about FGM, was dismissed in the High Court last January and Mr Justice Kevin Feeney refused leave to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court. The family was given a reprieve against their deportation later last year following the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights.