Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000038

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/67248/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
13 March 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KAMARA

Between

SH
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms M Peters, counsel instructed by Howe & Co Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms J Isherwood, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 7 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
Introduction
1. The appellant has been granted permission to appeal the decision of the First-tier Tribunal in which his protection appeal was dismissed following a hearing which took place on 10 October 2024.
Anonymity
2. An anonymity direction was made previously and is maintained because this appeal concerns a protection claim.
Factual Background
3. The appellant is a national of Pakistan now aged fifty who originally arrived in the United Kingdom during January 2011 with leave to enter as a student. He became an overstayer and subsequently pursued a series of unsuccessful applications to remain in the United Kingdom. In one of those applications the appellant claimed to be the unmarried partner of a male Portuguese national despite the appellant having a wife and children in Pakistan. After that claim failed, the appellant claimed to be dependent upon his Swiss-national brother and his appeal against the respondent’s refusal to issue him with a Residence Card was dismissed on 6 January 2015 for want of credibility.
4. The appellant applied for asylum during 2019 after being encountered working, without permission, in a restaurant. That application was based on the appellant’s membership of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), his involvement in JKLF protests and having been arrested on several occasions around that time.
5. By way of a decision dated 7 December 2023, the respondent refused the appellant’s protection claim. While his membership of JKLF was accepted, for a variety of reasons the respondent did not accept that the appellant was of significant adverse interest to the Pakistan authorities and it was considered that his delay in seeking asylum had a negative impact on the credibility of his claim.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal
6. At the hearing before the First-tier Tribunal, the agreed issues were whether the appellant’s activities would give rise to a risk on return to Pakistan, whether he had an existing profile in Pakistan and whether the authorities would have an interest in him upon his return. The judge took the findings of the judge who considered the appellant’s previous (EEA) appeal as the starting point as far as his personal credibility was concerned.
7. The overall findings of the First-tier Tribunal are summarised at [39-40] of the decision and reasons.
Having considered the entirety of the claim I accept that the appellant was a historic supporter of the JKLF who attempted to cross the border into India in 1992 and was shot by the Indian border forces. I am further willing to accept that the appellant attended 3-4 demonstrations in Pakistan when he was at college in the 1990’s. I accept that he may have been arrested for such attendance, however he has failed to give any details of these events and I do not accept that the appellant was mistreated by the Pakistani authorities. Nor do I accept that he has had any involvement with the JKLF in the last 20 years, either in Pakistan or the UK. I find he left Pakistan on his own passport and has willingly approached the Pakistani authorities in the UK to obtain an updated passport.
There is simply no credible evidence before the Tribunal that the appellant has any political profile or has engaged in any political activities in the UK. He is not someone who has demonstrated even to the lower standard a current genuine conviction for the JKLF I do not find events from over 20 years ago, will put him at any risk now. I find the appellant is someone who is willing to lie to the Tribunal to support which ever case he is pursuing at any given time. He is not a credible witness or witness of truth and I put no weight upon his testimony.
The appeal to the Upper Tribunal
8. The grounds of appeal can be summarised as follows
i. A failure to adequately assess the appellant’s risk on return to Pakistan.
ii. A failure to engage with aspects of the appellant’s supporting evidence
9. Permission to appeal was granted on the basis sought, with the judge granting permission making the following remarks.
This was a lengthy and detailed decision but it is arguable that the age of the Appellant's activities might not be a factor in whether he would be of interest, particularly in the context of FIRs or his continuing activities in the UK. In the circumstances all the grounds may be argued.
10. The respondent filed no Rule 24 response.
The error of law hearing
11. The matter comes before the Upper Tribunal to determine whether the decision contains an error of law and, if it is so concluded, to either re-make the decision or remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal to do so. A bundle was submitted by the appellant containing, inter alia, the core documents in the appeal, including the appellant’s and respondent’s bundles before the First-tier Tribunal.
12. The hearing was attended by representatives for both parties as above. Both representatives made submissions and the conclusions below reflect those arguments and submissions where necessary.
Discussion
13. The point made in the first ground is shortly made. It was argued that the judge at [22] erred in finding that the appellant was not at risk because the protests he attended were a long time ago. Ms Peters submitted that there was no reference in the country material to risk abating owing to a lapse of time. Ms Peters further confirmed that the appellant’s activities in Pakistan all took part in the early nineteen nineties.
14. I find that the contention in the first ground is not made out. The grounds wrongly focus on what was a passing comment by the judge at [22]
I specifically note that throughout the appellant’s evidence, it is clear that any protests he attended in Pakistan on behalf of the JFLK were very many years ago.
15. At this juncture, the judge was merely setting the scene. Thereafter the judge proceeded to assess all the evidence adduced before coming to a conclusion as to risk. Findings made by the judge which have not been subject to any challenge include that the appellant was unable to give consistent oral evidence as to whether or not he had been ill-treated in detention in Pakistan [24]; that the appellant did not leave Pakistan until 2011 (some two decades after the events he relies upon) and that he was able to leave Pakistan with a visa for the United Kingdom and to do so without incident. There is simply no basis for the first ground as the judge did not find that the appellant was not at risk because of the passage of time.
16. The second ground involves a series of poorly expressed disagreements with the judge’s treatment of the evidence.
17. For instance, at paragraph 7 of the grounds, the point is made that the appellant had never been asked if he had been mistreated in detention and it was unfair to find his failure to mention this during his asylum interview adversely affected his credibility. This point does not provide an adequate basis for challenging the judge’s remark that the appellant’s witness statement was also silent on this issue. Considering the appellant’s discrepant oral evidence as to whether or not he had been mistreated, even had the judge erred it would not have been a material error.
18. In paragraph 8 of the grounds it is said that the appellant had given evidence at the hearing as to how he would continue to ‘practise his political beliefs’ if he returned to Pakistan. On this, there was no material provided to support Ms Peters submissions which resembled oral evidence, which is impermissible applying BW (witness statements by advocates) [2014] UKUT 568 (IAC). Indeed, there was no request to listen to the recording of the hearing and Ms Peters who was counsel at the First-tier did not provide a witness statement. It is therefore not accepted that the judge failed to take account of the appellant’s oral evidence.
19. The remaining paragraphs of the grounds mostly criticise the weight attached by the judge to the appellant’s supporting evidence, in the form of three witness statements and an FIR. Contrary to what is said in the grounds, the judge was not requiring corroboration but remarking upon the failure of those representing the appellant to address the deficiencies in the evidence set out in the Respondent’s Review.
20. The grounds cherry pick phrases used by the judge such as that the supporting evidence did ‘not assist’ the appellant’s claim but there is no engagement with the series of detailed findings which are set out at [26-33]. Those findings include that none of the letters provide dates nor details as to the appellant’s claimed activities in JKLF in either Pakistan or the United Kingdom, that the concerns expressed in the Respondent’s Review had not been addressed, there were concerns with the identical appearance of two of the letters, that the documents were in photocopied form only and the absence of any evidence as to how the appellant received this material in the United Kingdom. The judge’s lengthy assessment and rejection of the FIR [33] was not subject to any challenge by Ms Peters.
21. The decision and reasons in this case are careful and balanced. More than adequate reasons are provided for concluding that the appellant would not face persecution in Pakistan were he to return there.
Notice of Decision
The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of an error on a point of law.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal shall stand.

T Kamara

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

10 March 2025

NOTIFICATION OF APPEAL RIGHTS

1. A person seeking permission to appeal against this decision must make a written application to the Upper Tribunal. Any such application must be received by the Upper Tribunal within the appropriate period after this decision was sent to the person making the application. The appropriate period varies, as follows, according to the location of the individual and the way in which the Upper Tribunal’s decision was sent:

2. Where the person who appealed to the First-tier Tribunal is in the United Kingdom at the time that the application for permission to appeal is made, and is not in detention under the Immigration Acts, the appropriate period is 12 working days (10 working days, if the notice of decision is sent electronically).

3. Where the person making the application is in detention under the Immigration Acts, the appropriate period is 7 working days (5 working days, if the notice of decision is sent electronically).

4. Where the person who appealed to the First-tier Tribunal is outside the United Kingdom at the time that the application for permission to appeal is made, the appropriate period is 38 days (10 working days, if the notice of decision is sent electronically).

5. A “working day” means any day except a Saturday or a Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday or a bank holiday.

6. The date when the decision is “sent’ is that appearing on the covering letter or covering email