Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-005813
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/59706/2023
LP/07680/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 22 April 2025

Before

Deputy upper tribunal JUDGE Kelly

Between

RH
(ANONYMITY ORDERED)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms L Prakaj, Legal Representative
For the Respondent: Mr M Diwnycz, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer.

Heard at Field House on the 2nd April 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 member of the public to identify the appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction
1. The Appellant is a citizen of Iraq who formerly resided in the Iraqi Kurdish Region (IKR). The Respondent refused his protection claim on the 31st October 2023 and his appeal against that refusal was dismissed by First-tier Tribunal Judge Caswell on the 5th October 2024. Upper Tribunal Judge Bulpitt granted permission to appeal against Judge Caswell’s decision. Hence the matter came before me.
The appellant’s case
2. The essence of the appellant’s claim before the First-tier Tribunal was that he feared an influential oligarch, and former work colleague, called ‘Nasradin’. This fear stemmed from the fact that the appellant had reported Nasradin’s boasts to their mutual employer. Those boasts were to the effect that he (Nasradin) had extensive power and influence, and had participated in serious criminal offences, including abduction and murder. The appellant’s report had led not only to Nasradin’s dismissal from employment, but also to his arrest and imprisonment for offences of abduction.
Findings of the First-tier Tribunal
3. Judge Caswell accepted the appellant’s account of the primary facts, as summarised above, but concluded that (a) Nasradin had exaggerated the extent of his power and influence, and (b) the authorities in the IKR would be able and willing to provide the appellant with sufficient protection from Nasradin. Alternatively, the appellant would be able relocate to another part of Iraq that was beyond Nasradin’s reach.
The grounds of appeal.
4. In summary, the grounds of appeal complain that having accepted the appellant’s account of what Nasradin had claimed to be his extensive influence and history of criminal activity, the judge acted irrationally in not also accepting the truth of that claim. The grounds assert, in conclusion, that, “if it were accepted Nasradin were telling the truth to the appellant, and he did have influence, then it is accepted there is not sufficiency of protection or internal relocation”.
Analysis
5. Judge Caswell set out her reasons for finding that the appellant was a credible witness at paragraphs 18 to 28 of her decision. She then went on to explain, at paragraph 29, why she nevertheless found that the appellant had failed to demonstrate that his fears were well founded:
To a substantial extent, therefore, I accept the Appellant’s account. However, I am not satisfied that the man Nasradin, whom the Appellant “worked alongside”, as he put it in his witness statement, was an oligarch, a man with powerful connections, and the funds to get what he wanted and act with impunity. I do not find that such a person would want to work as a security employee for any company, even one involved in oi production. Further, the Appellant’s case is that he heard that Nasradin was arrested for his criminal acts. I do not find that a powerful oligarch would find himself in this position, as i find he would use his contacts and great wealth to avoid detention. I accept that Nasradin told the Appellant he was powerful, as the Appellant claims, but I find this was an exaggeration of his importance. In other words, i accept the Appellant believes Nasradin to be powerful oligarch, but that this is objectively well-founded.
6. Ms Prakaj criticised this passage on account of its brevity and what she claimed was the inadequacy of its reasoning. I reject both criticisms. The brevity and consequent clarity of the judge’s reasoning is to be commended rather than criticized. I also do not accept Ms Prakaj’s submission that the judge was unable to make the finding that she did without “objective evidence” (background country information) to support it. It was for the appellant to substantiate the claim that his subjective fear was well-founded, rather than for the respondent to prove otherwise.

7. Neither do I accept the implication of Ms Prakaj’s submissions that the reasoning of the judge is somehow ‘irrational’. To the contrary, the reasoning is the logical consequence of an all-too-apparent contradiction between Nasradin’s boasts of possessing extensive influence, on the one hand, and the fact that he was subsequently arrested and imprisoned by the very authorities over whom he supposedly held such influence, on the other. That contradiction was highly relevant to the linked questions of (1) whether the appellant’s fears were objectively well-founded, (2) the extent of Nasradin’s supposed reach and influence, and (3) the operation by the IKR authorities of an effective legal system for investigating, prosecuting and punishing those who might wish the appellant harm. Put in terms of international protection law, it was relevant to both the question of whether there was sufficiency of state protection in the appellant’s home area of the IKR, and whether any residual risk of harm could be avoided by relocation to another area.

8. Ms Prakaj also argued that the judge’s finding, concerning the question of whether the appellant’s fear was well founded, failed to take account of (1) the fact that the appellant is “familiar with customs and life in Iraq”, and (2) his claim, made in the asylum interview, that the police had not acted upon his complaints that relatives and/or associates of Nasradin had subsequently fired guns at his place of work.

9. The first argument appears to suggest that the judge ought to have treated the appellant’s subjective fear as determinative of the question of whether it was also well-founded. I find this argument to be both illogical and circular. Fear, by definition, is a subjective emotion. Its cause can thus only be objectively verified by external evaluation, for it may otherwise be nothing more than the product of irrational paranoia Moreover, the argument runs counter to Ms Prakaj’s criticism of the judge’s failure to refer to external ‘objective evidence’ that was capable of supporting her finding that the appellant’s fear was not well founded; a criticism that I have rejected, based as it is upon a reversal of the burden of proof (see paragraph 6, above).

10. As previously noted, the second argument is based upon replies that the appellant gave in his Asylum Interview; replies which, I must say, I found difficult to follow. However, on the basis that the appellant was saying that the authorities failed to take effective action against those who had fired guns at his place of work, the implied criticism appears to be based upon an assumption that they had sufficient grounds (that is to say, evidence) to justify arresting and prosecuting individual suspects but nevertheless failed to do so. Given the way in which the IKR authorities reacted to the information that the appellant had supplied against Nasradin himself, it seems to me that the judge would not have been justified in making any such assumption. As noted above, the test for sufficiency of protection is whether an effective legal system exists for investigating, prosecuting, and punishing the perpetrators of harm, rather than whether it provides a guarantee of safety for all its subjects in all circumstances. Based upon the appellant’s own account, which the judge accepted, I am satisfied that it was reasonably open to her to make the findings that she did, for the reasons that she gave, and was that she was thus entitled to conclude that Nasradin’s claimed ability to act with impunity was ill-founded.
Notice of Decision
11. The appeal is dismissed, and the decision of the First-tier Tribunal therefore stands.

David Kelly Date: 9th April 2025
Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber