Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-004983

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/62295/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

19th June 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RUDDICK

Between

KQ
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Khan, Solicitor, of King’s Law Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms Simbi, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre on 10 June 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant is granted anonymity.

No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the appellant, likely to lead members of the public to identify him. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The First-tier Tribunal (“the FTT”) made an anonymity order because the appellant has made a protection claim. Although the FTT found that the appellant is not in need of international protection, it is right that the order continue until his appeal rights are exhausted.
2. The appellant appeals with permission against the decision of the FTT of 2 July 2024 dismissing his protection appeal. The appellant is accepted to be a citizen of Iraq of Kurdish ethnicity. He claims to have fled Iraqi Kurdistan to escape a violent land dispute between his family and a powerful Kurdish tribe. He also says that he would be at risk of inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) because he does not have an Iraqi national identity card and would not be able to obtain one.
3. The FTT dismissed the appellant’s account of the land dispute on credibility grounds, finding that there had been material inconsistencies between the various accounts he had given in his asylum questionnaire completed on 2 June 2023, his witness statement of 15 June 2023, his asylum interview of 29 August 2023, his second witness statement of 19 February 2024, and his oral evidence. The FTT also found that the various documents the appellant had submitted were not reliable.
4. With regard to redocumentation, the FTT rejected the appellant’s claim that he had left his CSID at home in Iraq and his mother could not find it. In the alternative, the FTT took into account that the appellant was in touch with his family and the current country guidance caselaw and CPIN in the appellant’s bundle (SMO and KSP (Civil status documentation; article 15) Iraq CG [2022] UKUT 0010 (IAC)) and Iraq: Internal relocation, civil documentation and returns, Version 14.0) and found that the appellant could “reasonably re-document as required”.
The grounds of appeal
5. The appellant’s grounds of appeal contain a number of references to established legal principles that are not clearly linked to this particular appeal. The grounds that address this particular appeal are:
(i) Failure to give reasons, in general;
(ii) the FTT erred in its assessment of the appellant’s credibility because at [36] it held against the appellant the contents of a statement that he had disavowed; it is not clear whether this was a fairness or rationality point;
(iii) the FTT erred in placing little weight on news reports relied on by the appellant, because they were “reliable and from a legitimate source” and the FTT gave inadequate reasons for rejecting them; this appears to be a disagreement phrased as a failure to give reasons;
(iv) the FTT failed properly to take into account the letter from the appellant’s witness referred to at [38]; no specific error in the FTT’s consideration of the letter is identified;
(v) the appellant’s account had been consistent throughout; in finding that it was inconsistent, the FTT had failed to “engage” with the explanation for the inconsistencies in the appellant’s witness statement; there does not appear to be any arguable error of law pleaded here, simply an assertion that the FTT did not accept the appellant’s explanation for the inconsistencies;
(vi) the FTT gave inadequate reasons for finding that the appellant would be able to obtain a new identity card on return to Iraq, given that he “does not have contact with his family and therefore cannot rely on his family to assist with documentation”; this was a significant misstatement of the appellant’s case, which was that he did have contact with his family but that they would not be able to assist him to redocument because they could not find his CSID;
(vii) the FTT failed to follow the extant country guidance on redocumentation, SMO and KSP (Civil status documentation, article 15) (CG) Iraq [2022] UKUT 110 (IAC); the specific aspects of the guidance that had not been followed were not identified.
6. The FTT refused the appellant permission to appeal, but the UT granted permission for the following reason:
“It is arguable that the Judge’s approach to assessing the appellant’s returnability to Iraq at [43] of the decision, and the brief reasoning they give in one short paragraph, is inadequate and thus erroneous in that it fails to properly engage with that which is stated in SMO & KSP […] in the context of the appellant’s claim that he arrived undocumented and that his family in Iraq would not be in a position to assist him in obtaining either CSID or an INID.”
7. The grant of permission was unrestricted.
The hearing
8. At the hearing before the Upper Tribunal, there was a composite bundle of 256 pages. The respondent had not filed a response under Rile 24, but Ms Simbi confirmed that the appeal was opposed. I heard submissions from both parties, for which I am grateful and which I have taken into account in making my decision. I will not set them out in full here but will refer to them as necessary in the discussion below.
9. At the end of the hearing, I reserved my decision, which I know give with my reasons.
Discussion
10. In deciding whether the Judge’s decision involved the making of a material error of law, I have reminded myself of the principles set out in a long line of cases, including Ullah v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ 201, at [26], Yalcin v SSHD [2024] EWCA Civ 74, at [50] and [51], Gadinala v SSHD [2024] EWCA Civ 1410, at [46] and [47], and Volpi & Anor v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464, at [2-4] and of the danger of “island-hopping”, rather than looking at the evidence, and the reasoning, as a whole. See Fage UK Ltd & Anor v Chobani UK Ltd & Anor [2014] EWCA Civ 5 [114].
11. Mr Khan focused his submissions on the grounds related to the appellant’s lack of identity documents, which he described as his strongest grounds. However, I begin my discussion with the challenges to the FTT’s credibility findings, because the FTT’s finding that the appellant would be able to obtain an INID card rested in part on its adverse credibility findings.
12. The suggestion that the FTT had failed to give reasons for rejecting the appellant’s account is entirely without merit. At [37], the FTT summarised the multiple inconsistencies about core aspects of the appellant’s account, as follows:
“Even having regard for the translation and alleged solicitor errors, there remained material inconstancies [sic] in the Appellant’s accounts. For example, in his second witness statement, he stated that in fact in the first incident [in 2018] his father, brother, two cousins and three Tribe members were killed. In the interview, he stated that his father, brother, two uncles and two Tribe members were killed. In his oral evidence, he stated that there were five family members killed. There were other inconsistencies regarding where the Appellant fled to following the various incidents, and for how long, and whether the mediated agreement [between the families] was two or three years after the first incident.”
13. At the hearing before me, in light of the ground of appeal asserting that the appellant’s account had been consistent, I asked Mr Khan if the FTT was mistaken about any of these claimed inconsistences. He acknowledged that it was not.
14. The FTT then considered each of the supporting documents offered in support of the appeal, and gave specific reasons for finding them unreliable. A letter from a witness was given no weight because the appellant himself had said in his witness statement that it contained a mistake about whether certain people had been killed or injured, and “it is not explained how the writer was aware of the truth of the information”: [38]. These are clear and cogent reasons for placing little weight on the letter, and the ground of appeal challenging them was not pursued before me. At [39], the FTT decided to place little weight on the appellant’s father’s death certificate because of inconsistencies in the date of death and the fact that it contained no cause of death, as well as because of the multiple other inconsistencies in the appellant’s evidence (which was a permissible consideration in line with Tanveer Ahmed). The appellant did not criticise the rejection of the death certificate in his grounds, but Mr Khan did do so at the hearing before me. For the sake of completeness, I deal with his argument in spite of it having been raised for the first time at the hearing. It was that it was not open to the FTT to draw adverse inferences from the inconsistencies in the date of death, because there was a letter from the translators taking responsibility for their “administrative typing errors”. I consider that it was reasonably open to the FTT to reject this explanation, in the context of the appellant’s repeated efforts to blame inconsistences about the central facts of his claim on Google translate, interpreters, or solicitor’s errors, as listed at [34]-[36] of the decision. Finally, the FTT placed no weight on the news report because the source and authenticity of the document could not be assessed from the copy provided, and the report contained little detail. These, too are clear and cogent reasons. The assertion in the grounds that the source was reliable is no more than a disagreement. The source may well be reliable, but there was no evidence of this before the FTT and none has been offered in support of the appeal to this tribunal. This ground, too, was not pursued before me.
15. At [41]-[42], the FTT set out its conclusion on credibility:
“41. When considering the Appellant’s evidence as a whole, there are inconsistencies regarding the number of incidents, the time period between the last incident and the date the Appellant left Iraq, the time period before the mediated agreement, how many people were killed (and who) in each incident, and whether people were killed or injured.
“42. Even giving the Appellant the benefit of the doubt, and accepting that translation and solicitor errors can occur, he has provided a very inconsistent account of the key events. I do not find him to be a credible witness and I reject the material aspects of his account.”
16. These reasons are clearly adequate as defined in MK (duty to give reasons) Pakistan [2013] UKUT 641, and they are rational in light of the evidence before the FTT. All of the challenges to the FTT’s credibility findings therefore fail.
17. The FTT’s reasons for finding that the appellant would be able to obtain the necessary identity documents are briefer, but they are nonetheless adequate. The FTT began by rejecting “the Appellant’s claim regarding a lack of identification documentation.” Ms Simbi drew my attention to where that claim was made and what it consisted of. In his statement of 19 February 2024, the appellant said that he had had a passport and CSID card but his passport had been taken from him by smugglers in Europe and his mother had moved home and was unable to find his CSID. As the FTT rejects this claim immediately after making a strong adverse credibility finding, it is sufficiently clear that the FTT does not accept it because of that adverse credibility finding.
18. The FTT then goes on to consider, in the alternative, whether the appellant would reasonably be able to redocument himself after his return. It notes that he is in contact with his family and concludes, by reference to the CPIN and the Country Guidance case in the appellant’s bundle, that he would be able to redocument himself.
19. In the skeleton argument below, the appellant’s representatives claimed that the appellant would be unable to redocument himself because he would need to attend his local CSA in the KRI to do so, but he would be unable to travel there safely because he would be returned to Baghdad. That argument is clearly out of date, because, as noted in the CPIN that was before the FTT, returns can take place to both Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. At the hearing before me, Mr Khan made a different argument, which was that the appellant would not be able to leave any airport, even one in the KRI, without an identity card. However, he was unable to point to any evidence of this. I drew his attention to para. 5.12 and 5.13 of the CPIN:
“5.1.2 Ethnic Kurds who pass residency requirements and are documented or can be redocumented upon or shortly after return are able to be returned to the KRI directly via Erbil or Sulaymaniyah airports […].
“5.1.3 The Inspection Report on Country of Origin information, Iraq and Myanmar (Burma) undertaken by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI), published June 2023 (ICIBI report June 2023), quoting Dr Rebwar Fateh, an expert witness on the Middle East, stated:
‘If a failed asylum seeker is returned to Iraq without an ID document, they will be detained at the airport.
a) The returnee will then be interviewed to give some indication of whether they are from their claimed governorate or region (through dialect, accent etc.). From the returnee’s Kurdish or Arabic dialect, the officer will be able to tell whether the returnee is from Iraq or not.
b) At this time, the returnee’s claimed name and address will also be cross referenced against suspect names in possession of the security services.
c) Next, the returnee will be asked to phone their immediate family to bring their ID.
d) If they claim to have no immediate family, the returnee will be asked to contact a paternal uncle or cousin for their ID.
e) If this is negative too, another relative will come to the airport with their own IDs to act as a guarantor for the returnee. This would allow the returnee a seven-day residency permit pending proof of identity.
f) During this period, the returnee needs to obtain their own ID or provide evidence that they are in the process of obtaining an ID – such as a letter from the nationality department to show that their ID is pending via the usual procedure. […]”
20. I asked Mr Khan if he could point to any other evidence that was before the FTT that contradicted this detailed account of how the appellant would be able to redocument himself with the assistance of his family members. He could not. Nor could he identify which aspect of SMO the FTT had failed to follow.
21. I accept Ms Simbi’s submission that, in light of the unchallenged evidence in the CPIN, the only finding that the FTT needed to make with regard to this particular appellant was that he was in touch with his family. That finding is not challenged; indeed, it was the appellant’s case that he was in touch with his family. Combined with the reference to the CPIN, that finding was a sufficiently clear and cogent reason for dismissing the document-related aspect of the appellant’s claim.
22. For these reasons, there are no errors of law in the FTT’s decision.
Notice of Decision
The appellant’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal is dismissed and the decision of the First-tier Tribunal of 2 July 2024 stands.

E. Ruddick

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

13 June 2025