Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No.: UI-2024-005107

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/60233/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

10th April 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MONSON

Between

SM (IRAQ)
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr M McGarvey, Counsel instructed by Seren Legal Practice
For the Respondent: Ms S Cunha, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House and via Teams on 20 March 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 the appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant appeals to the Upper Tribunal from the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Loughridge promulgated on 13 August 2024 (“the Decision”). By the Decision, Judge Loughridge dismissed the appellant’s appeal against the decision of the respondent to refuse his protection and human rights claims.

Relevant Background

2. The appellant is a national of Iraq, whose date of birth is 10 August 1998. He is recorded as having claimed asylum on 28 April 2021 when he was given a screening interview, which was conducted in Kurdish Sorani.

3. He said that he had left Iraq on 11 November 2020 and travelled to Turkey on a visa. His father paid an agent £3,500 to get him away safely from Iraq. He stayed in Turkey between 11 November 2020 and 28 March 2021 while he waited for his dad to find a suitable agent for his onward travel. He arrived in the UK in the back of a lorry on 27 April 2021. He could not go back to Iraq because he had a problem with two brothers in high-ranking military positions who would kill him if he went back.

4. The appellant completed an asylum questionnaire with the assistance of legal representatives. He feared the family of a girl he had a relationship with. One brother was a Police Officer, and the other brother was working in the Intelligence Services. The appellant was from Sulaymaniyah. He had entered a relationship with a girl called Lana. They met in college. Their relationship began in 2018. They mostly had contact over the phone, and they occasionally saw each other in college. His problems began in 2020. He was on a bus with his girlfriend, and her friend. He was holding his girlfriend’s hand. The friend took a photo. His girlfriend and her friend later had a falling out. To take revenge, the friend showed his girlfriend’s brother the photograph.

5. The appellant went to Turkey for a holiday. His girlfriend contacted him to say that she was in trouble. He tried to contact her after this, but he could not connect with her. The appellant was told by his father that the photograph of them both had been posted on Facebook. His father also told him that the girl had died. The appellant was sure that she was killed by her family. He was warned by his father not to return to Iraq. The appellant stayed in Turkey for approximately four months. The appellant had been in contact with his parents since leaving Iraq. His father said that the girl’s family was looking for him.

6. The appellant was interviewed about his asylum claim on 10 October 2023. The appellant was asked who told him that the photo was posted on Facebook. He said that a friend of his father had told his father. It was not posted. It was in a story on Facebook. The appellant had not seen the photo himself, because he did not have the account of that person who published the picture in their story (AIR 106-107). He did not know that Lana was in trouble before he left for Turkey (AIR 108). He had not originally intended to go on holiday to Turkey for four months. The original plan was to be in Turkey for one month, but he extended it to four months after the incident occurred, which meant that he could not go back. He found out that Lana was dead, as it was published on her story and they showed it to her father.

7. He was asked who had published that she was dead. He said that it might have been her relatives (AIR 114). He asked how he knew that Lana’s family had killed Lana. He said that it was because her best friend was threatening to show the photo to her brother and there was not anything else that would cause her death. He was asked how he knew that Lana’s family was looking for him. He said that after the incident, his family told him that there were cars coming and going outside the house, and that was why he knew that his life was in danger (AIR 118).

8. Lana’s family had not tried to contact him directly because they did not know that he was in Turkey, and they could not contact him personally. They had not attacked his family back in Iraq, because the issue was with him personally. Until the moment they were sure that he was not in Kurdistan, they were still looking for him (AIR 119-120).

9. The appellant was asked why in that case his family had moved to Iran? He said that this was because of his father’s three other sons. For the safety of his family, they had gone outside of Kurdistan (AIR 121).

10. In the reasons for refusal letter (RFRL) dated 17 October 2023, the Home Office accepted that the appellant had a relationship with a woman named Lana, but they did not accept the remainder of his account, as he had provided inconsistent evidence without reasonable explanation, as well as a lack of detail, and there were some elements of his account which were implausible and inconsistent with external information.

11. In the statement which the appellant made for his appeal in June 2024, the appellant said that after a few weeks of his holiday in Turkey had begun, Lana had called him to say that her life was in danger from her family, as her friend had told her that she had a picture of them holding hands, and she was threatening to give the picture to Lana’s brothers. The phone died whilst they were talking. He never received a call from her again. He could have called, but she had told him never to call her. His father then called to tell him that Lana had died. He said that a friend had shown him a Facebook story with her name and picture, saying that she was dead. A Facebook story was a photo or video shown on someone’s Facebook story. It was visible for a few hours, and then disappeared. As his father worked in the security forces in the city where Lana died, it would be normal for him to be made aware of deaths happening in the city. His father told him that it was likely she was killed by her family, as there had not been any reports of car accidents or other incidents which would explain her death. Her father told him not to come back, and that he would look into what had happened. His father arranged a meeting with Lana’s family in a mutual house. He brought some family members for protection, and he met with Lana’s brothers. His father wanted to pay them to leave him and his family alone, but at the meeting they said that they did not want any money. They wanted to meet the appellant and restore the family’s honour.

12. At the interview, he was only able to answer questions put to him by the Home Office, and therefore the meeting that his father had had with Lana’s family did not come up during the interview.

The Hearing Before, and the Decision of, the First-Tier Tribunal

13. The appellant’s appeal came before Judge Loughridge sitting at Columbus House in Newport on 29 July 2024. Both parties were legally represented, with Ms Alban of Seren legal Practice appearing on behalf of the appellant. The Judge received evidence from the appellant, who confirmed the contents of his witness statement and who was cross-examined by Mr Jerwood (the Home Office Presenting Officer).

14. The Judge’s findings and reasons began at paragraph [12] of the decision. At para [14] the Judge found the appellant’s evidence credible in respect of Lana’s best friend having taken a Selfie photograph of the three of them on the bus, and that the circumstances were as set out in paragraph 10 of the appellant’s witness statement.

15. However, at para [15] the Judge did not accept that Lana’s best friend had disclosed the photograph to Lana’s brothers. Overall, the likelihood of the best friend betraying Lana in this way was diminishingly small. There was also no explanation at all as to how the photograph posted by Lana’s best friend on her Facebook account would have come to the attention of Lana’s brothers.

16. At para [16], the Judge said that it followed that he did not find that Lana had been harmed or even threatened by her brothers, simply because they were not aware of her relationship with the appellant. He did not accept that the appellant had received a call from Lana when he was on holiday in Turkey during which she said her life was in danger. Similarly, whilst he recognised that honour crimes were not uncommon in Iraq, he did not accept that anyone from Lana’s family had attempted to find the appellant by driving past his home or his place of work. If Lana’s brothers were as powerful as the appellant suggested, there was no reason why they (or individuals acting on their instructions) would not have been more pro-active in searching for him - for example, trying to enter his home or his place of work, rather than simply driving past. This did not make any sense.

17. He also rejected the appellant’s assertion that his father had a meeting with Lana’s family to offer them money to resolve matters, which they refused, and that the whole family had to relocate to Iran due to fear for the safety of his brothers.

18. At para [17] the Judge found that, furthermore, posting a Facebook story relating to Lana’s death was highly implausible, because honour killings were covered up rather than openly publicised. Whilst he recognised that her Facebook story may just have stated that Lana had died, without any details being given, the suggestion that her family voluntarily engaged in publicity of that nature in circumstances where they themselves had murdered her, lacked all credibility, regardless of how powerful or influential her brothers might be.

The Grounds of Appeal to the Upper Tribunal

19. Ms Alban settled the appellant’s grounds of appeal to the Upper Tribunal. Ground 1 was that the Judge had made a series of material factual errors. Ground 2 was that the Judge had failed to give reasoned findings at paras [15] and [16]. Ground 3 was that the Judge had erred in para [15] in making findings in contradiction to the objective evidence. Ground 4 was that the Judge had erred in law in rejecting the background evidence showing that CSID cards had not been a valid form of identification in Iraq/the KRI since 1 April 2024 on the ground that the evidence was inconsistent with the country guidance case of SMO & KSP (Civil status documentation; article 15) Iraq CG [2022] UKUT 00110 (IAC).

The Reasons for the Grant of Permission to Appeal

20. In a decision dated 2 November 2024, First-tier Tribunal Judge Mills gave reasons for granting permission to appeal.

21. Having considered the witness statement for the appellant, Judge Mills said that it was arguable that the Judge had misunderstood some of his account, and that some of the adverse credibility findings made were founded upon these misunderstandings. It was also arguable that the Judge had found certain parts of the claim to be implausible - specifically that the appellant’s father would have met with the young lady’s family to try to pursue reconciliation - when background evidence confirmed that such events routinely occurred in Iraqi Kurdistan. For those reasons, it was arguable that the Judge’s adverse credibility findings were unsustainable.

22. While he was less persuaded by the other grounds, he did not limit the grant of permission.

The Hearing in the Upper Tribunal

23. The hearing before me to determine whether an error of law was made out was a hybrid one, with Mr McGarvey appearing by Teams, whereas Ms Cunha was physically present in the Court Room at Field House.

24. Mr McGarvey developed the grounds of appeal. He acknowledged that the CPIN on Blood feud, honour crime and tribal violence, dated July 2024 (which was cited in Ground 3) had not been before the First-tier Tribunal Judge. However, he submitted that the CPIN of 2021 that was before the Judge contained a similar message. As to Ground 4, he relied on SA (Removal destination: Iraq: undertakings) Iraq [2022] UKUT 00037 (IAC), as he clarified in a Post Hearing Submission dated 25 March 2025 which has been uploaded to the CE-file.

25. On behalf of the respondent, Ms Cunha submitted that on analysis the error of law challenge was one of perversity. There were inconsistencies in the appellant’s account which were explored in cross-examination. There was no transcript of the evidence to show that the Judge had made factual errors in respect to the appellant’s evidence. After briefly hearing from Mr McGarvey in reply, I reserved my decision.

Discussion and Conclusions

26. In the light of the way that the appellant’s case has been presented, I consider that it is helpful to set out the guidance given by the Court of Appeal in T (Fact-finding: second appeal) [2023] EWCA Civ 475 as to the proper approach which I should adopt to the impugned findings of fact made by Judge Loughridge:

“56. The most-frequently cited exposition of the proper approach of an appellate court to a decision of fact by a court of first instance is in the judgment of Lewison LJ in Fage UK Ltd v Chobani UK Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 5:

“114. Appellate courts have been repeatedly warned, by recent cases at the highest level, not to interfere with findings of fact by trial judges, unless compelled to do so. This applies not only to findings of primary fact, but also to the evaluation of those facts and to inferences to be drawn from them. The best known of these cases are: Biogen Inc v Medeva plc [1977] RPC1; Piglowska v Piglowski [1999] 1 WLR 1360; Datec Electronics Holdings Ltd v United Parcels Service Ltd [2007] UKHL 23, [2007] 1 WLR 1325; Re B (A Child) (Care Proceedings: Threshold Criteria) [2013] UKSC 33 [2013] 1 WLR 1911 and most recently and comprehensively McGraddie v McGraddie [2013] UKSC 58 [2013] 1 WLR 2477. These are all decisions either of the House of Lords or of the Supreme Court. The reasons for this approach are many:

(i) The expertise of a trial judge is in determining what facts are relevant to the legal issues to be decided, and what those facts are if they are disputed.
(ii) The trial is not a dress rehearsal. It is the first and last night of the show.
(iii) Duplication of the trial judge's role on appeal is a disproportionate use of the limited resources of an appellate court, and will seldom lead to a different outcome in an individual case.
(iv) In making his decisions the trial judge will have regard to the whole of the sea of evidence presented to him, whereas an appellate court will only be island hopping.
(v) The atmosphere of the courtroom cannot, in any event, be recreated by reference to the evidence (the transcripts of the evidence),
(vi) Thus even if it were possible to duplicate the role of the trial judge, it cannot in practice be done.

115. It is also important to have in mind the role of a judgment given after trial. The primary function of a first instance judge is to find facts and identify the crucial legal points and to advance reasons for deciding them in a particular way. He should give his reasons in sufficient detail to show the parties and, if need be, the Court of Appeal the principles on which he has acted and the reasons that have led him to his decision. They need not be elaborate. There is no duty on a judge, in giving his reasons, to deal with every argument presented by counsel in support of his case. His function is to reach conclusions and give reasons to support his view, not to spell out every matter as if summing up to a jury. Nor need he deal at any length with matters that are not disputed. It is sufficient if what he says shows the basis on which he has acted. These are not controversial observations: see Customs and Excise Commissioners v A [2022] EWCA Civ 1039 [2003] Fam 55; Bekoe v Broomes [2005] UKPC 39; Argos Ltd v Office of Fair Trading [2006] EWCA Civ 1318; [2006] UKCLR 1135.”

57. More recently, Lewison LJ summarised the principles again in Volpi and another v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464 at paragraph 2:

i) An appeal court should not interfere with the trial judge's conclusions on primary facts unless it is satisfied that he was plainly wrong.
ii) The adverb "plainly" does not refer to the degree of confidence felt by the appeal court that it would not have reached the same conclusion as the trial judge. It does not matter, with whatever degree of certainty, that the appeal court considers that it would have reached a different conclusion. What matters is whether the decision under appeal is one that no reasonable judge could have reached.
iii) An appeal court is bound, unless there is compelling reason to the contrary, to assume that the trial judge has taken the whole of the evidence into his consideration. The mere fact that a judge does not mention a specific piece of evidence does not mean that he overlooked it.
iv) The validity of the findings of fact made by a trial judge is not aptly tested by considering whether the judgment presents a balanced account of the evidence. The trial judge must of course consider all the material evidence (although it need not all be discussed in his judgment). The weight which he gives to it is however pre-eminently a matter for him.
v) An appeal court can therefore set aside a judgment on the basis that the judge failed to give the evidence a balanced consideration only if the judge's conclusion was rationally insupportable.
vi) Reasons for judgment will always be capable of having been better expressed. An appeal court should not subject a judgment to narrow textual analysis. Nor should it be picked over or construed as though it was a piece of legislation or a contract.”

Ground 1

27. The premise underlying Ground 1 is inherently tendentious, as it treats the appellant’s appeal statement as being the exclusive and/or authoritative source of the appellant’s evidence, when the appellant’s evidence had changed over time, and the appellant had been cross-examined on his appeal statement. In deciding what the central thrust of the appellant’s evidence was on material matters, the Judge will rightly have had regard to the whole of the sea of the evidence presented to him - not just to what the appellant said in his appeal statement.

28. Dealing with the asserted factual errors one by one, the first asserted factual error relates to para [12] of the decision, where the Judge said that the appellant’s case was that Lana’s best friend took a photo of him and Lana holding hands on a bus when they were students, and the best friend subsequently betrayed Lana by posting the photo on Facebook; and that Lana’s family saw the photo and her brothers murdered her because she had dishonoured the family.

29. It is apparent that the Judge’s summary reflected the understanding of Mr Jerwood of the appellant’s case. In his closing submissions, he submitted that essentially the appellant’s case was that a single photo of him and Lana discreetly holding hands on a bus was seen by her family on Facebook, and this led to her brothers murdering her and seeking to do the same to the appellant.

30. I accept that in his appeal statement the appellant left open the question of how the photograph of him holding hands with Lana had been disclosed to the appellant’s brothers. At para 22 of his statement, he said that his father’s friend did not see a photo of him holding hands with Lana on Facebook, but he had seen a story of Lana’s death on Facebook. I consider that this goes to a different point. The error of law challenge conflates two separate issues. The first is the communication of the photograph by the best friend to the appellant’s brothers; and the second is how Lana’s death was communicated on Facebook.

31. The second factual error relates to the Judge’s finding at para [15] that it is not credible that a photo posted by Lana’s best friend on her Facebook account would have come to the attention of Lana’s brothers, as the appellant’s evidence was that Lana did not use social media, and therefore she did not have a Facebook account which her brothers could monitor and through which they might have discovered a photograph of her on her best friend’s account.

32. I accept that the appellant in his appeal statement did not specify that the method by which the best friend communicated the incriminating photo to Lana’s brothers was by publishing it on her Facebook account. However, I consider that the Judge was not clearly wrong, having regard to the sea of evidence before him, to find that the thrust of the appellant’s case was that the mechanism by which the best friend had betrayed Lana was by posting the incriminating photo on her Facebook account.

33. The third factual error relates to the Judge’s finding at para [17] that it was implausible that Lana’s family would have posted about Lana’s death in a Facebook story. I accept that the appeal statement does not address the question of who was responsible for posting the Facebook story about Lana’s death. But the clear implication of the appellant’s account in his asylum interview was that Lana’s family was responsible for the Facebook story, and the appellant explicitly identified her family as being the source at AIR 107.

34. The fourth factual error relates to the Judge’s finding at para [18] that there was no credible explanation as to why the appellant had lost contact with his family. Reliance is placed on the fact that in para 20 of his appeal statement the appellant claimed that his family blamed him for having to leave their home and employment, and studies etc.

35. However, the Judge was clearly aware of this explanation, and it is equally clear that the Judge rejected the explanation for the reasons which he gave at para [18], where he said as follows: “Finally, I reject the appellant’s assertion that he is no longer in touch with his family - and there is no particular reason why that would be the case, not least because on his own evidence he remained in touch with them until approximately July 2023, more than 2 years after he first arrived in the UK, and there is no credible explanation as to why contact was lost at that stage. This finding has obviously related to my previous finding that his family has not had to relocate to Iran.”

Ground 2

36. Under Ground 2, it is argued that the Judge’s rejection of the claim that Lana was betrayed by her best friend in para [15] is inadequately reasoned. I consider that it was clearly open to the Judge to find that it was not credible that Lana’s best friend would betray her for the reasons which he gave, which were (a) that the friendship went back to when Lana was very young and (b) that her best friend would have been well aware of the potential risks to Lana resulting from such disclosure.

37. It is also argued under Ground 2 that the findings in para [16] are inadequately reasoned. But these findings follow on from the sustainable finding in para [15] that Lana was not betrayed by her best friend.

Ground 3

38. Ground 3 relates to the following findings: (a) that no meeting took place between the appellant’s father and Lana’s family to resolve issues; (b) that the whole family did not have decamp to Iran to escape a blood feud.

29. It is said that these findings are contrary to the objective evidence, but the Judge did not base finding (a) on the objective evidence. Finding (a) flowed inevitably from the earlier finding that there was no betrayal, and hence no need for a reconciliation meeting. In addition, although not highlighted in the reasoning, there was a clear inconsistency in this aspect of the narrative. When asked in interview how he knew that Lana’s family was looking for him, he said that his family told him that there were cars coming and going outside the house (AIR 118). This reasonably engendered the criticism in the RFRL that the appellant’s fear was speculative. However, on the account given in his appeal statement, the appellant knew for certain that he was being targeted by Lana’s family because Lana’s family had confirmed in a meeting with his father that they were looking for him. The Judge was not bound to accept that the explanation for the failure by the appellant to supply this crucial piece of information in interview was because the interviewer did not him give the opportunity to do so.

39. As to finding (b), as well as flowing logically from the sustainable finding that there was no betrayal in the first place, it was clearly open to the Judge to find it incredible that the appellant’s family would have taken such a drastic precautionary step, given that on his own account Lana’s family had not attacked or threatened his brothers or father in his absence. In interview he said that Lana’s family had not attacked his family back in Iraq, because the issue was with him personally. Hence the logical corollary was that his brothers and father would not be at risk in Iraq if he remained outside Iraq.

40. The Judge went on to state that there was no suggestion in the objective evidence that wider family members – such as the brothers of the perpetrator of the dishonour – were at risk. I do not consider that the Judge was clearly wrong to make this finding on the background evidence that was before him. It is significant that the error of law challenge relies on a CPIN that was not before the Judge rather than on the CPIN which was. But even if this additional point made by the Judge was a bad one, it does not detract from the other reasons given by him for disbelieving this aspect of the narrative.

Ground 4

41. Ground 4 relates to the appellant’s alternative claim that he faces a real risk of harm contrary to Article 3 ECHR due to a lack of valid ID.

42. In the appeal skeleton argument (ASA) the appellant’s case was that although the roll-out of the INID scheme had begun in 2016, its implementation was sporadic and the appellant had not applied for an INID card before he left Iraq in 2020. Conversely, the government had announced on social media that CSID cards would be no longer valid from March /April 2024, and so the appellant would not be able to use his CSID card to pass through checkpoints.

43. In the review, it was noted that the appellant said that his original CSID in Iraq. The latest CPIN dated October 2023 confirmed that family members could be contacted from the airport to bring the returnee’s ID or to act as a guarantor while appropriate ID was obtained.

44. At the hearing. Ms Alban submitted that the system had now completely transferred across to INID cards. Therefore, the appellant could not return safely because he would not be able to pass through checkpoints “even if he flies directly to the KRI.”

45. The Judge found at [19] that the appellant’s CSID card could be sent to him or he could be met on arrival at the return airport and the CSID handed over to him. At [20] he rejected the submission that CSID cards were no longer valid from 1 April 2024. He acknowledged that there was evidence showing that 1 April 2024 was a date on which the Iraqi authorities were aiming for CSID cards to be no longer valid, but the evidence also showed that they were originally aiming for 1 March 2024. The Judge continued: “The reality is that delays and revised timescales are commonplace in such matters – and if the invalidity of CSID cards actually went ahead on 1 April 2024 it would be reasonable to expect to see evidence that it actually happened.”

46. The Judge went on to direct himself that there had to be credible fresh evidence to justify a departure from an extant country guidance authority, and he found that the background evidence relied on by the appellant did not meet this requirement, “given that it all pre-dates the revised proposed deadline.”

47. Ms Alban submits in the grounds that the absence of further reports about the deadline being extended is indicative of the fact that the deadline has not been extended.

48. I consider that the error of law challenge in Ground 4 is no more than an expression of disagreement with a finding by the Judge which was reasonably open to him for the reasons which he gave.

49. In oral argument, Mr McGarvey raised a different point which was that the Judge did not take account of the fact that an enforced return would be only to Baghdad. However, this was not a point taken before the Judge, and so he did not err in law in not specifically addressing it. The case put forward by Ms Alban was not that the appellant would be unable to make his way from Baghdad to the KRI, but that he would not be able to make his way from a return airport in the KRI to his home in the KRI.

50. The Judge gave adequate and sustainable reasons as to why the appellant would be able to pass through checkpoints on his way home from a return airport in the KRI; and his reasons were sufficiently broad to encompass the possibility of the appellant having to negotiate checkpoints between Baghdad and the KRI, as one of his alternate findings was that the appellant’s CSID could be sent to him before his departure.

Conclusion

51. For the reasons given above, no error of law is made out.

Notice of Decision

The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not contain an error of law, and accordingly the decision stands. This appeal to the Upper Tribunal is dismissed.

Anonymity

The First-tier Tribunal made an anonymity order in favour of the appellant, and I consider that it is appropriate that the appellant continues to be protected by anonymity for the purposes of these proceedings in the Upper Tribunal.

Andrew Monson
Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
4 April 2025