Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-005734

First-tier Tribunal Nos: PA/53108/2023
LP/05257/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision and Reasons Issued:
On the 07 April 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE PERKINS
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KIRK

Between

DI
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr K Wood , Legal Representative, Immigration Advice Service
For the Respondent: Ms A Everett, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 13 February 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.
We make this order because the appellant seeks international protection and publishing his identify might put him at risk.

DECISION AND REASONS
(extempore)
1. This is an appeal by a Kurdish citizen of Iraq against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal dismissing his appeal against a decision of the respondent on 13 April 2023 refusing him international protection. The judge, like the Secretary of State, did not believe the appellant’s account of having to flee Iraq in fear both of the PKK because the appellant was thought to have been a supporter of the KDP and of the KDP because the appellant was thought to have been a supporter of the PKK.
2. The First-tier Tribunal Judge gave three main reasons for disbelieving the account.
3. First, the judge found the account of the appellant being identified as a KDP spy implausible. It depended on the appellant happening to be present at a place where the PKK wanted to establish a roadblock and the PKK assuming that the appellant was a spy rather than present by happenchance and then the PKK telling the appellant not to publish the presence of the roadblock, something that the judge found implausible because its presence could not be expected to remain a secret for long, and then releasing the appellant even though the PKK saw the appellant as an enemy.
4. Second, the judge found “implausible and speculative” the appellant’s contention that he was identified as an enemy by the KDP because someone with a mobile phone had seen his alleged encounter with the PKK and reported him.
5. Third, the judge found that the appellant’s credibility was undermined by Section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004.
6. In our judgment none of these reasons are compelling although each may be perfectly proper findings to make when an overall assessment is done.
7. The difficulty is that the appellant explained in his witness statement that there was a great deal of PKK activity in the area where he was encountered. His claim to have attracted the attention of the KDP was supported by his claim that his family home was visited by KDP activists on the same day that he was seen. No good reason was given for rejecting this part of the evidence.
8. It follows that his failure to claim asylum on his route to the United Kingdom may well have been a very weighty element in the decision.
9. The skeleton argument relied on in the First-tier Tribunal gave several reasons why the appellant was frightened to claim asylum on his journey. Essentially he says that he was frightened of his traffickers; it is not clear from the Decision and Reasons that the judge appreciated, still less grappled with, the explanations given and so an important element of the adverse credibility finding is plainly unsound. Even a statutory reason must be routed in reality rather than legal fiction and the appellant’s explanation for his apparently discreditable behaviour has not been seen to have been considered.
10. Overall, the reasons for the adverse conclusion are inadequate.
11. We cannot accept that any of the findings have to be preserved because credibility is to be assessed in the round in light of the totality of the evidence.
12. It follows therefore that in our judgment the decision is fundamentally unsatisfactory and the appeal has to be redetermined in the First-tier Tribunal.
13. We raised these points with Ms Everett at the start of the proceedings; she had anticipated them and notwithstanding her experience was not able to say very much in support of the decision.

Notice of Decision
14. The First-tier Tribunal erred in law. We set aside its decision and we direct that the case be redetermined in the First-tier Tribunal without any findings preserved. That is our decision.

Signed
Jonathan Perkins
Jonathan Perkins

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Dated 3 April 2025