The applicant, Nigerian national, submitted an asylum application which was rejected as unfounded because the State Secretary considered the applicants’ statements not credible, based on the registration interview and the personal interview conducted during the procedure. The applicant contested the negative decision and claimed that the State Secretary breached procedural safeguards by not sending to the authorised representative the registration interview.

The Court of the Hague considered that the applicant has explicitly substantiated that his interests have been harmed because the authorized representative was unable to discuss the registration interview, to make corrections and additions and to prepare the applicant for the further interview, how this will proceed, how many questions will be asked of him and what is expected of him.

The legal representative also pointed out that a Dublin procedure was first followed, and she was not informed that a registration interview for the national procedure had been scheduled, thus she was also unable to take this into account.

The Court of the Hague allowed the appeal and concluded that the State Secretary must act according with its policy, including by ensuring procedural guarantees are carefully met. If it is inadvertently not announced that a registration hearing will take place and the report of the registration hearing is inadvertently not sent to the representative, the determining authority should have considered, in consultation with the applicant's representative, what actions could have diligently been taken to give the representative the opportunity to prepare the applicant for the further hearing and to enable him to present his story adequately.

If the State Secretary fails to do so, it will have to explain how this defect is included in the procedure in the credibility assessment because as the applicant rightly pointed out, the State Secretary may not, without further reasoning on this point, include contradictions between the hearings in the credibility assessment and may not form the basis for the rejection of the asylum application on the registration report. The contested decision was annulled for procedural deficiencies and the State Secretary will have to proceed to a new examination, including to conduct another hearing.