High Court orders Home Affairs to grant Nigerian woman refugee interview after papers criticised

The KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Durban has ordered the Department of Home Affairs to provide a Nigerian woman seeking asylum with a good-cause interview within 60 days, while sharply criticising the quality of the papers filed on her behalf.

Order and court reasoning

Judge Malcolm Wallis directed that Chetachi Christie Uduogu be afforded a good-cause interview before the department’s Immigration Services Inspectorate within 60 days so her refugee claim can be assessed. The department had already agreed to an order substantially allowing the interview by the time the matter was argued, leaving costs as the remaining issue for the court to determine.

Serious flaws in the application

The court criticised the founding affidavit and related papers as deeply flawed, noting multiple factual errors, inconsistencies and poor drafting. The judge found the affidavit appeared to have been prepared from a template that was not properly adapted to the applicant’s circumstances.

Among the errors highlighted by the court was a section headed “Conflict in Ethiopia” even though the affidavit discussed unrest in Nigeria. The affidavit also claimed Uduogu was born in Nigeria but stated she had been the victim of war crimes committed by the Ethiopian military. When questioned at the hearing, the applicant’s counsel was unable to explain those contradictions.

Gaps in factual detail

The court found significant shortcomings in essential factual detail supporting the asylum claim. Although the applicant said she arrived in South Africa by air in 2018, the affidavit did not specify the date of arrival, the airport of entry, the airline used or include a copy of her passport. The affidavit also contained an unexplained statement that she had entered the country without a transit visa.

Judge Wallis noted that the affidavit provided only broad generalisations about alleged persecution in Nigeria and failed to identify any specific incidents, the town from which she allegedly fled or why she could not seek safety elsewhere within Nigeria before leaving the country.

Delays, missing documents and translation issues

The affidavit said Uduogu visited the Durban refugee reception office in March 2018 but was turned away because it was fully booked, and that she returned monthly before the centre later closed during the Covid-19 pandemic. It also alleged an application was submitted through a non-governmental organisation in February 2023, but no copy of that application or a supporting affidavit from the organisation was provided.

The court observed no apparent activity between February 2023 and January 2026, when Uduogu said she was told she first needed a good-cause interview. The papers further contained deficiencies relating to translation: while an interpreter certified fluency in several languages, the affidavit and interpreter’s certificate did not adequately identify the language from which the affidavit had been translated or establish that the translation process had been properly conducted.

Outcome on costs and conduct of legal representatives

Despite the defects in the application, Judge Wallis recognised the special position of asylum seekers and noted that Home Affairs had acted appropriately by agreeing to facilitate the interview. The court said the application would likely have failed had it not been for the department’s consent and the special circumstances surrounding refugee matters.

The judgment also criticised the applicant’s legal advisers, noting they had been previously criticised in an earlier judgment for similar defective applications. As a consequence of the flawed papers, the court made no costs order between the parties and ordered that the applicant’s attorney and counsel may not recover any fees for the case and must refund any money already paid to them.