The High Court will give judgment next week on a legal challenge aimed at preventing the deportation of a Nigerian woman who claims her two young daughters are at risk of serious harm due to female genital mutilation (FGM) if returned to Nigeria.
Pamela Izevbekhai and her daughters, Naomi (7) and Jemima (6), took the judicial review proceedings after the Minister for Justice, Equity and Law Reform’s refused to consider her claim for “subsidiary protection” here.
Today, following a two day hearing, Mr Justice Brian McGovern reserved judgment in the case, saying he would give his ruling next Tuesday.
The family claim the Minister had erred in law by refusing to grant them subsidiary protection or to overturn the deportation orders. They claim 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.
The material includes statements from medical practioners and human rights groups about the practise of FGM in Nigeria, and the family claims it shows the two young children’s lives are at serious risk due to FGM.
Eoin McCullough SC, for the Minister, said his client had not acted irrationally when holding no new material had been advanced by the family in their application for subsidiary protection.
Counsel also rejected the argument that the material could be considered as “altered circumstances”. He said the family’s application for asylum had already been considered and rejected by the Refugee Appeals Commission, Refugee Appeals Tribunal and the High Court.
In reply, Mel Christle SC, for the family, said counsel for the Minister had said the Minister’s views on FGM were not relevant to the case but the fact was this went “to the root of the case”.
Counsel said the Minister should have described how FGM is viewed by him. There was an onus on the Minister to properly consider, weigh and balance each and every one of the documents submitted as part of the application for subsidiary protection which, he argued, amounted to new material showing it was likely the two girls would be subjected to FGM if they are deported. However, that had not been done in this case.
Ms Izebekhai 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 detained 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 last year following the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
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. The Government agreed to the request.