Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-005954

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/51983/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

30th April 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LESLEY SMITH
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE SOLANKI

Between

RG
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms Aziz, Counsel for the Appellant (instructed by Sterling Lawyers Ltd)
For the Respondent: Mr Tufan, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 6 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. We have made an order to anonymise the Appellant. An anonymity order was made in the First-Tier Tribunal. Having considered Guidance note 2022 No 2: Anonymity Orders and Hearings in Private, we agreed that the need to protect the identity of the Appellant in the light of his asylum claim necessitates a departure from the principle of open justice.
2. The Appellant is a citizen of Georgia. His date of birth is 20 April 2000. He entered the UK on 6 August 2022 and claimed asylum on that day. His claim was refused on 17 January 2024.
3. The issue for us is whether the First-tier Tribunal (‘FtT’) Judge Davidson (‘the Judge’) erred in law, in a decision dated 14 November 2024, when dismissing the Appellant’s appeal against the decision of the Respondent on 17 January 2024 to refuse his application on protection and on human rights grounds.
Background to the Claim
4. The Appellant’s claim arose from money ($40,000 US) he had been lent to set up a business trading in spare car parts. The business failed, he was left bankrupt and unable to pay the loan.
5. He had received threats and was assaulted in February 2022 as a result of non-payment of the loan. The Appellant said that the police were informed but no action was taken. He also said that authorities were involved in the matter. In June 2022 his grandmother received a summons from the Prosecutor’s office of the Special Crime Investigation Department.
6. He argued that he would not receive state protection, nor would he be able to internally relocate.
The Findings of the FtT
7. The decision of the FtT (‘FtT Decision’) dismissing the appeal reads as follows:
a. It was agreed by the parties that Appellant should be treated as a vulnerable witness. There were no objections raised to the questions put to him in the hearing. He was offered breaks. At no point was any issue brought to the attention of the Tribunal by the Appellant as he was invited to do so (§3).
b. It was accepted by the Respondent that money had been lent to the Appellant and that he has received threats and been assaulted owing to non-payment of the loan (§8, §§15-16).
c. There was no separate Article 3 or Article 8 ECHR claim advanced by the Appellant (§8).
d. The Respondent submitted that she did not accept that the authorities were involved as the Appellant alleged, the Appellant’s documents were unreliable and no weight should be attached to the same, there was no convention reason, there was sufficiency of protection and internal relocation was a viable option (§8, §12).
e. The Appellant’s counsel had submitted that his grandmother, with whom he lived in Georgia, had been summoned to the police station and she had told him this was owing to his non-payment of a loan. As such, it was argued by her that the summons was relevant to risk on return, in that those he borrowed money from were of sufficient influence to be able to levy the authorities to place pressure on the Appellant. Ms Wass (who represented the Appellant in the First-tier Tribunal) argued that the authorities had also not acted when he was subjected to violence. She had also argued that he had tried to relocate internally when he had stayed with another grandmother in Tbilisi and those he feared had contacted him there via the telephone line; the size of the country also meant relocation was not viable (§13).
f. In his interview the Appellant did not say the authorities were involved, he said he feared illegal agencies/the money lenders. This interview took place in 2024 and the summons had been issued at this point. There was nothing which he said in the interview to indicate interest from the authorities, even when he was asked about the police. At the hearing his evidence was that nothing had been officially logged on any enforcement system in Georgia regarding him (§§17-18).
g. The Appellant is not sure who the money lenders are, as such the police would not be able to undertake investigation owing to a lack of information. This does not show a lack of state protection (§§19-20).
h. The country information does show politically motivated investigations and prosecutions. Freedom of expression and the media is severely limited. There is violence against journalists. There is substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly. There is also said to be high-level corruption. The Appellant’s evidence was that the police were just warning him to pay and as such if there was police involvement it was for this reason; the Appellant does owe money. The evidence does not show a lack of state protection, there is due process (§21).
i. Internal relocation would be a viable option. In oral evidence the Appellant fabricated a claim to live with a different grandmother in Tbilisi. He said in his asylum interview that he had always lived in Kutaisi, that his only relative in Georgia was his grandmother and when asked if he could live elsewhere, including in Tbilisi, he said “no it is quite a big net there.” His issue is a localised problem (§22).
j. The Appellant said that the economic outlook in Georgia was poor, his interview also said he needed money to support his grandmother with medication. He came here for economic reasons and to escape those who lent him money. His claim is not well-founded. His claim for humanitarian protection/under Article 3 ECHR fails (§23).
k. There was no Article 8 ECHR claim advanced, but the Appellant would not face very significant obstacles to his integration, in interview he said he had no health issues which interfered with daily life, he has anxiety and depression but has not produced evidence he would be unable to receive treatment for the same (§24).
The Grounds of Appeal
8. The grounds of appeal are dated 26 November 2024 and are drafted by Ms Aziz. They can be summarised as follows:
1) Ground 1 is titled as ‘Misdirection of law and matters relevant to the outcome of the appeal - Failure to assess the A’s credibility in line with the A vulnerabilities.’ It is said:
i. The Appellant was suffering from depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. It was accepted at the outset of the hearing that he should be treated as vulnerable. There was no consideration of how his mental health would impact him if he was returned, aside from it being said he could access treatment at §24 of the decision.
ii. The presidential guidance was not applied to the Appellant and he was not given the benefit of doubt when assessing his credibility.
iii. The FtT focussed on peripheral issues which did not go to the core of the claim. The Judge failed to provide sufficient reasoning. There was a failure to assess the Appellant’s credibility against the evidence and his mental health issues.
2) Ground 2 is titled as ‘Failing to give sufficient consideration and reasoning on risk on return’. It is argued that:
i. It was accepted by the Respondent that the Appellant owed debt, that this accrued interest, and that he was subjected to violence as a result of this debt. This showed a reasonable likelihood he would face persecution on return.
ii. Insufficient weight was attached to the documents, including the Appellant’s statements. There was inadequate explanation for disregarding the documents, including the Human Rights Report and Transparency International Report highlighting high levels of corruption. This was not considered in looking at risks in Georgia.
9. Ms Aziz submitted a skeleton argument, dated 4 March 2025, which expanded on the grounds. The arguments are put in reverse order in this document and there is some overlap in the arguments. On Ground 2 it is said that “there was significant objective evidence for the tribunal which reflected the corruption within the police force in Georgia. This evidenced the risk of harm he would face as she would not be able to get the protection from the authorities if he was returned”; the Judge did not explain why he did not accept this country evidence, the Judge did not consider his vulnerability or give the Appellant the benefit of doubt when considering answers in his interview, it is not explained by the Judge why the Appellant’s evidence was considered to be fabricated. On Ground 1 it was said that the Appellant provided medical evidence that he was subjected to violence and suffered with mental health issues but his condition was not considered when assessing credibility, the impact of return upon him, his ability to manage his health on return or when assessing the obstacles he would face. There was a lack of reasoning and focus on peripheral issues.
Grant of Permission
10. The Appellant was granted permission to appeal by FtT Judge Lawrence in a decision dated 31 December 2024. The decision reads as follows:
2. It is arguable that there is inadequacy in the judge’s reasons for rejecting the Appellant’s claim that state actors are involved in attempts to recover a debt owed by the Appellant to a money lender whom the Respondent accepts has threatened the Appellant and subjected him to violence and there was evidence before the judge of extensive police corruption in the country in question. The judge refers at their para. 21 to “reasons given above” for not accepting there is police involvement in his claim, but it is arguable that no such reasons are given, or that any such reasons are insufficiently clear. Any such error is arguably material, because a threat from state actors might extend throughout the country in question.
3. I also consider it arguable that the judge materially erred by failing to have regard to the potential impact of the Appellant’s (apparently accepted) mental health conditions of anxiety and depression when assessing credibility.
Submissions
11. We heard submissions from both representatives. Ms Aziz’s submissions were in the context of the grounds of appeal and her skeleton argument. There was no Rule 24 response. Mr Tufan defended the decision of the FtT.
12. The documents before us and the parties included (a) the stitched bundle of 148 pages which was before the FtT, (b) 4 items of background evidence which were served separately to the FtT, (c) a 59 page bundle prepared for the hearing before us and, (d) a skeleton argument prepared by Ms Aziz for the hearing before us.
Relevant Law
13. We remind ourselves of the following principles that the law says must apply when considering whether there is an error of law. We summarise these, having considered: KM v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 693, AH (Sudan) v SSHD [2007] UKHL 49, AA (Nigeria) v SSHD [2020] EWCA Civ 1296, MA (Somalia) v SSHD [2010] UKSC 49 and Volpi & Anor v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464:-
i. The First-tier Tribunal is an expert Tribunal, and an appellate court should not rush to find a misdirection merely because it might have reached a different conclusion on the facts or expressed themselves differently.
ii. The UT should not interfere with the trial judge's conclusions on primary facts unless it is satisfied that he was plainly wrong. The UT should not be astute to characterise as an error of law what, in truth, is no more than a disagreement with the UT's assessment of the facts.
iii. Where a relevant point is not expressly mentioned by the First-tier Tribunal, the court should be slow to infer that it has not been taken into account.
iv. The UT is an appellate court, and it is bound, unless there is compelling reason to the contrary, to assume that the First-tier Tribunal judge has taken the whole of the evidence into his consideration. The mere fact that the First-tier Tribunal does not mention a specific piece of evidence does not mean that he overlooked it.
v. Experienced judges in this specialised Tribunal are to be taken to be aware of the relevant authorities and to be seeking to apply them without needing to refer to them specifically.
vi. Reasons for judgment will always be capable of having been better expressed. An appellate 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.
vii. Decisions should be respected unless it is quite clear that the First-tier Tribunal has misdirected itself in law.
viii. The focus should be on the way the First-tier Tribunal performed the essence of the task required.
Findings and Reasons
14. We will address each ground in turn.
Ground One
15. We find that there is no merit in the argument that the FtT failed to treat the Appellant as vulnerable or to have regard to his vulnerability or relevant Guidance when assessing the evidence or credibility.
16. SB (vulnerable adult: credibility) Ghana [2019] UKUT 398 (IAC) (SB Ghana) provided the following Guidance:
(1) The fact that a judicial fact-finder decides to treat an appellant or witness as a vulnerable adult does not mean that any adverse credibility finding in respect of that person is thereby to be regarded as inherently problematic and thus open to challenge on appeal.
(2) By applying the Joint Presidential Guidance Note No 2 of 2010, two aims are achieved. First, the judicial fact-finder will ensure the best practicable conditions for the person concerned to give their evidence. Secondly, the vulnerability will also be taken into account when assessing the credibility of that evidence.
(3) The Guidance makes it plain that it is for the judicial fact-finder to determine the relationship between the vulnerability and the evidence that is adduced.
17. The Judge specifically said at the outset of his decision that the parties agreed to treat the Appellant as vulnerable. It does not appear that there was a request by counsel for the Appellant for any special measures in respect of evidence. However, the Judge notes that he was offered breaks and invited to bring any issues to the Tribunal’s attention and he did not do so. The presenting officer also appears to have asked appropriate questions as the FtT notes that no objections were raised in cross examination (§3 FtT decision). This indicates that the Judge applied the Joint Presidential Guidance in the first way SB Ghana recommends. It has not been suggested that any further steps should have been taken by the Judge at the outset of the hearing or during the same.
18. As to the second aspect of SB Ghana, we remind ourselves that the Joint Presidential Guidance Note No 2 of 2010: Child Vulnerable and Sensitive Appellant Guidance (‘Joint Presidential Guidance’) says at 10.3 that where there is a vulnerable witness the Tribunal are to be aware of the fact that some forms of disability may cause or result in impaired memory, the order and manner in which evidence is given may be affected by trauma or disability, comprehension of questioning may have been impaired. We note that there was in fact no evidence which indicated that the Appellant’s health impacted his evidence in this way or that he may have misunderstood questions in the hearing or at interview stage. Indeed, we were not taken to any such evidence in the hearing and the FtT Judge does not seem to have been referred to any. The medical evidence before the FtT was dated 2022. We summarise the evidence here for completeness:
a. The first document is from Tskhakaia Medical Centre dated 15 February 2022, it says the Appellant suffered concussion, a wound in the right hand area of the fourth finger, multiple lesions of the soft tissue of the body especially in the face area, he was struggling with headaches, dizziness, bleeding and swelling in the finger area, disruption of function and there were bruises all over his body. His condition on admission to hospital (9 February 2022) is described as acute and on discharge (15 February 2022) it is described as satisfactory.

b. The second document is from JSC Evex Medical Corporation dated 20 July 2022, it says the Appellant has psychological and mental problems as a result of stress, mixed anxiety and depressive disorder and panic attacks, that he saw a consultant psychologist and a psychiatrist, he had medical and psychotherapeutic treatment and individual psychological sessions, behavioural therapy and electrocardiography, he received treatment from 23 June 2022 until 20 July 2022 and was prescribed sevasam for over a month.
19. The asylum interview was conducted in January 2024. The hearing before the FtT took place in November 2024. There was no updating medical evidence. The Appellant’s witness statement, dated 29 September 2024, did not address his current health and how this impacted upon him (if at all). The Judge indeed notes in §24 of the FtT decision that the Appellant said in his asylum interview that he had no health issues which impacted his living.
20. As to the submission made that the impact of return on the Appellant’s mental health was not considered by the Judge, we disagree. As stated above, at §24 the Judge records that in interview the Appellant said his health did not impact upon his life. He further said that there was no evidence produced that he would be unable to receive treatment for his mental health on return. There was in any event, nothing within the evidence which suggested Appellant’s health would be adversely impacted by return. We also again note the date of the medical evidence that was before the FtT.
21. It follows that there is no material error of law on this issue.
22. The next aspect of ground one is that it is said that the Judge focussed on peripheral issues and he failed to give sufficient reasoning. We find that this complaint is not made out. The issues that remained live between the parties were (a) whether the police were involved with those he feared and interested in the Appellant, (b) whether he could seek state protection, and (c) whether he could relocate internally.
23. In looking at police involvement, the Judge has considered answers in interview and in the hearing regarding the same and found there was no interest (see §§17-18 FtT Decision). This was a core issue in the claim. The Judge has considered the change in evidence or inconsistencies in this regard and found the claim not to be credible. The reasons given are understandable and sufficient.
24. In addressing state protection, the Judge has considered that the state were unable to identify the Appellant’s persecutors when he was assaulted which is why matters were not taken further, that on the Appellant’s own evidence the police was simply asking him to pay his debt and that the objective evidence shows that state protection is available (§19-21 FtT Decision). There is nothing which addressed peripheral matters in these findings. We return to this issue in Ground 2.
25. Internal relocation need only be considered if state protection is not available. The Judge has nonetheless addressed internal relocation. He has found that the Appellant’s issue is a localised to his place of residence, Kutaisi, on the evidence before him. He has explained that he did not accept the state were involved. He concluded the Appellant had embellished a claim to have a grandmother in Tbilisi that he had lived with and having previously been located by those he fears whilst there. This was because in interview he claimed he has only ever lived in Kutaisi, that the only relative he had in Georgia was his grandmother (who was in Kutaisi) and that he did not mention at that stage having been tracked down by his persecutors in Tbilisi (§22 FtT Decision). These findings address the explanations given by the Appellant for his inability to relocate. The decision in this regard is reasoned and coherent with the Judge addressing the stark differences in the evidence provided.
26. We find that there is no material error of law in respect of the issues raised in Ground One.
Ground Two
27. In respect of ground two, it does not follow that the Appellant is at real risk of serious harm on return simply because it was accepted that he owed debt and that he was subjected to violence and threats as a result of non-payment of this in 2022. The Judge has correctly considered the ability of the Appellant to avail himself of the protection of the state and the Appellant’s ability to relocate within Georgia.
28. As to the submission that insufficient weight has been attached to the documents, the argument focusses on the consideration of the country evidence and the alleged failure of the Judge in addressing evidence relating to high levels of corruption within the police. It is our view that that the Judge specifically considers and summarises the country evidence at §21 of his decision. He concludes that it does not support the conclusion that the Appellant would be unable to obtain state protection.
29. The four items of country evidence before the FtT included (a) Human Rights Watch Report 2023, (b) Transparency International Alleged Cases of High-Level Corruption October 2024, (c) Transparency International Report From Concentrated Power to State Capture: Georgia’s backsliding anti-corruption reforms February 2019, and (d) the USSD Report 2023.
30. There is nothing within the Human Rights Watch Report which addresses corruption.
31. The October 2024 report from Transparency International discusses high-level corruption, giving examples of a municipality mayor and a former governor detained for corruption. This does not address or indicate police corruption.
32. The February 2019 report from Transparency International says that Georgia is a country to watch owing to growing concerns about high level corruption, that the country had made progress in reducing certain forms of corruption (including within education and the police), it discussed the ruling party’s control over media outlets and public institutions and law enforcement agencies preventing effective investigation of corruption against high ranking members of the government and ruling party, corruption amongst the ruling party and a group of senior judges for example. Again, this evidence does not show ‘significant objective evidence’ of corruption within the police force as argued.
33. The USSD Report says that there were reports of high level government corruption involving high ranking public officials or persons associated with the ruling party, that in February a new Anti-Corruption bureau became operational to facilitate the fight against corruption, investigative powers remained with the Anti-Corruption Agency, 99 public servants were charged with corruption in September. This document does not suggest there is corruption in the police. It further demonstrates that Georgia is making efforts to deal with high-level corruption.
34. We note that at §21 of his decision the Judge states that the evidence shows some issues with the authorities, but that the section on ‘Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees’ shows that there is due process. There has been no challenge to this finding and we agree with the Judge’s findings in this regard.
35. Whilst the oral arguments and grounds focussed on the country evidence, we have considered the other documentary evidence before the Judge and how this was approached for completeness.
36. The Appellant produced a notification summonsing his Nunu Gveletaini, living in Kutaisi, to the Prosecutor’s Office in Tbilisi dated 16 June 2022. The Judge has addressed this evidence at §§17-18 of his decision, finding that the Appellant failed to mention the existence of this document in his interview in 2024 and noting that the Appellant’s own evidence was that there was nothing on any Georgian law enforcement system regarding him.
37. The Appellant also produced a letter addressed to him from the Deputy Head of the Kutaisi Police Division dated 15 February 2022 which states that they have not been able to commence investigation of the attack on him owing to a lack of evidence. This is specifically addressed at §20 of the decision with the Judge finding that the police did not investigate owing to a lack of information and that this document did not show a lack of state protection.
38. Finally, the Appellant produced the medical evidence referred to at §§18(a-b) above in the decision. The Respondent of course accepted that the Appellant had been attacked as claimed, as this evidence demonstrated. For the reasons we set out in paragraphs 17-20 of this decision, the Judge clearly considered this evidence.
39. For the aforementioned reasons, we find that there is no material error of law on this ground.
Notice of Decision
40. There is no error of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal. The decision to dismiss the Appellant’s appeal is maintained.

P. Solanki

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

23 April 2025