RA (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

This is an application made by Miss RA, as I shall call her, who is currently 19. She entered this country as a minor aged 14 and, in the usual way in relation to unaccompanied minors, she was given leave to remain until 18. She applied for indefinite leave to remain after she arrived here and the Secretary of State refused that.

The grounds on which she applied were that one day she returned home to find that her father had been murdered, it is thought by the Bakassi Boys, a violent Nigerian vigilante group. Her mother and siblings were not at home. Only a friend was there, who introduced her into the care of someone else, who arranged for her to come to the United Kingdom, where she has since been living with her foster mother.

She, at the end of her schooling, started a nursing course. She is already in the middle of her second year of a three-year nursing course and submits that she ought not to now be deported to Nigeria. The Secretary of State, as I have   said, refused her application and she appealed to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, and that Tribunal upheld the Secretary of State’s determination by a decision in March of 2007. She then applied for that decision to be reconsidered, and Senior Immigration Judge Freeman did order reconsideration on the basis that it might be argued that there was no proper finding of fact in relation to family support available in Nigeria. So the matter then went to a re-determination by Senior Immigration Judge King TD, who made his decision on 14 September 2007. He said that there was limited material but that the applicant had not proved that she would be without family support if returned to Nigeria, and he echoed the original determination which said that the position was that since Miss RA had been in the United Kingdom she had made no enquires in Nigeria as to family support.

She sought permission to appeal that decision and that matter came before Senior Immigration Judge Latter, who decided that he could not give permission to appeal because there was no question of law that arose from the decision of Senior Immigration Judge King TD. He said that whether support existed in Nigeria was purely a question of fact and he then considered the applicant’s Article 8 rights, and said that it was not a disproportionate interference with her private or family life for her to be sent to Nigeria, because she had no family in the United Kingdom. Her only relationship was with her foster mother, although that was a close relationship.

Miss RA now seeks permission to appeal from the determination of September 2007 to this court. That application was refused by Hallett LJ, and she has now made a further renewed application to me this morning. I fear I have to say that I do agree with the Senior Immigration Latter’s decision. I can see no error of law or even any question of law that arises. I can only give permission to appeal if there is an arguable point of law, and I fear that there is none.

Whether, since Miss RA is now half way through her nursing course, the Secretary of State could, as an act of mercy, allow her to complete that course, so that when she goes back to Nigeria she would be qualified and perhaps able to apply from Nigeria as a qualified nurse to work in the United Kingdom, is, of course, a completely different matter. I can only say that, having seen Miss RA this morning, I would hope that the Secretary of State might see her way to making an arrangement of that kind; but as far as this court is concerned, there is no question of law and the application will have to be dismissed.