FOURTH SECTION
PARTIAL DECISION
AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application no. 32213/04
by Aminatu BELLO
against Sweden
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 21 September 2004 as a Chamber composed of:
MrM. Pellonpää, President,
MrsV. Strážnická,
MrS. Pavlovschi,
MrL. Garlicki,
MrsE. Fura-Sandström,
MsL. Mijović,
MrD. Spielmann, judges,
and Mrs F. Elens-Passos, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 8 September 2004,
Having regard to the interim measure indicated on 13 September 2004 to the respondent Government under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Ms Aminatu Bello, is a Nigerian national, born in 1984. She is represented before the Court by Ms Ylva Orrenius, a lawyer practising in Linköping.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant comes from Ala-Ladfin, in the northern part of Nigeria. She belongs to the ethnic group Lafia and is a Muslim.
She arrived in Sweden on 20 July 2003 and subsequently applied for asylum. She did not have any papers of identification.
The applicant submitted as evidence concerning her identity a certificate of registration of birth dated 18 March 2000 and an article from the Nigerian Observer, dated 7 May 2003. The article, “A pregnant teenager Muslim girl elopes to Europe?” states the following.
“A young 19 year old, Aminatu Bello of Nassarawa State in the northern part of Nigeria is reported to be on the run, having fled from one 60-year-old, Tijani Yesufu, whom she was engaged to. Feeling that she did not like the man she was betrothed to, young Aminatu Bello is alleged to have become pregnant by her younger lover, a discovery that she has not found to be comfortable within her Muslim Community. By the Shari'a laws, being pregnant by another man while being engaged is regarded as adulterous and the penalty would mean condemnation to death. The matter has been reported to the head of her village in Katsina-Ala and the Muslim clerics have declared Aminatu Bello wanted. A search to the hometown of her lover in Oyo State, in the Western part of the country has proved abortive so far since the event came to light some three months ago. Fears are expressed that Miss Aminatu Bello may have eloped outside the country with her lover but that cannot be confirmed as at the time of filing this report.”
Below the article there is a picture allegedly depicting the applicant, which was not questioned by the immigration authorities.
The applicant was interviewed twice by the immigration authorities. The first interview took place on 21 July 2003 during which the applicant stated inter alia the following. She had last contact with her boyfriend “...when [she] had this problem, in February this year. [She] had still contact with him in March and April, but now [she] doesn't have any contact with him. ... [She] saw him last in May”. She had not wanted to get married to the 60- year-old man suggested by her father, and she had told her father that she already had a boyfriend. She was however married in March 2003 against her will. She was also not allowed to begin her university education. After a while she discovered that she was pregnant. She told her father and he was very angry. Her husband learned about the pregnancy and beat her severely. One day her boyfriend showed her an article in the newspaper and said that she was already in the news and that she would have to face the consequences if she was captured. He told her that the village knew everything and that she had to leave. She had not realised the seriousness of the situation until she saw the article. People had also been looking for her in his home.
In a further interview held on 2 September 2003 the applicant stated that she had still been in Nigeria when the village chief had found out about her situation. In fact, she had learned about it from the newspaper article. After her husband found out about her pregnancy, she fled to her aunt and stayed there for two weeks before she left the country with the help of smugglers. She stated that she was about eleven weeks pregnant. She described that she had been badly treated by her husband and his other wives, and had often been beaten. Regarding papers of identification, she stated that she had never had any passport in Nigeria and that she did not have any other identification papers there. She was never given any documents during her travel to Sweden. Her boyfriend had contacted and paid a woman who had taken care of the documents.
The applicant gave birth to a son in Sweden on 4 February 2004.
On 8 October 2003 the Migration Board (Migrationsverket) rejected the applicant's application for asylum. The Board concluded that the applicant spoke Ibo, the language spoken in Nigeria, and that her application was to be tried vis à vis Nigeria. The Board remarked that according to the Nigerian newspaper article submitted by the applicant, “the incidents had taken place in March 2003”, whereas the applicant had stated that she got married in March 2003 and that the incidents leading to her leaving the country had occurred four months later. The Board found that irrespective of the truthfulness of her story, the applicant had not made sufficiently probable that she would not receive any protection or help from the Nigerian authorities. The protection from criminal actions and assault was a matter for the domestic authorities, and it appeared that the applicant had not reported the incidents to the police. The Board concluded that the applicant had not been able to show that upon return to Nigeria she would be treated in a manner entailing that she was to be considered a refugee or a person otherwise in need of protection. The Board further concluded that having regard to the very restrictive practice concerning the grant of a residence permit on humanitarian grounds, the facts in the instant case were not sufficient to warrant such a permit.
The applicant appealed against the decision to the Aliens Appeals Board (Utlänningsnämnden). The Migration Board had also referred to the Appeals Board the applicant's request for a residence permit concerning her son. In relation to the comments of the Migration Board regarding the time references in the article and those of her own, she submitted that she was a very young and inexperienced girl with great respect for authorities. She was however sure of the fact that she was married in March 2003 and that she became pregnant in April 2003. The applicant further stated that her boyfriend is now in hiding in Nigeria since he was persecuted by her family, as was her aunt who has fled to Ghana.
On 30 August 2004 the Appeals Board rejected her appeal and the application concerning her son. It concluded that the applicant's identity was unclear and that the time-references given by her were not compatible with the information in the Nigerian newspaper article. The time indicated for the “event” in the article was also inaccurate in relation to the time of birth of her baby. Due to the above, and considering the applicant's case as a whole, the Appeals Board found that she had not made probable that she was to be regarded as a refugee or as a person otherwise in need of protection. Nor did it find any humanitarian grounds to warrant a residence permit.
COMPLAINTS
1. The applicant complains under Article 3 of the Convention that her life would be at risk if forced to return to Nigeria. The authorities would not be able to protect her, since they also follow the Shari'a laws, and she would risk being killed not only through the execution of a court order but also by private individuals following the Shari'a laws.
2. The applicant further complains under Article 13 that she could not bring her case before any domestic court.
THE LAW
1. The applicant complains that a deportation of her to Nigeria would violate her rights under Article 3 of the Convention which reads as follows:
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
The Court observes that the complaint also falls to be considered under Article 2 of the Convention, § 1 of which reads as follows:
“Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.”
The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case file, determine the admissibility of this complaint and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court, to give notice of this part of the application to the respondent Government.
2. The applicant also complains that she did not have access to an effective remedy which entailed a violation of Article 13 of the Convention. Article 13 reads:
“Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.”
The Court finds that the applicant had access to, and indeed also availed herself of, an effective remedy within the meaning of Article 13 of the Convention in respect of the alleged violation of Article 3, namely the right to appeal to the Aliens Appeals Board against the decision made by the Migration Board. The applicant's case was consequently examined by two instances, each carrying out a separate examination of the case. Having regard to the above, the case does not disclose any appearance of a violation of Article 13 of the Convention.
It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to adjourn the examination of the applicant's complaint under Articles 2 and 3 concerning her deportation to Nigeria;
Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.
Françoise Elens-PassosMatti Pellonpää Deputy Registrar President
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy