Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000056

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/02061/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On the 12 March 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE DAYKIN

Between

E.S.
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: No appearance
For the Respondent: Miss Everett (Senior Home Office Presenting Officer)

Heard at Field House on 11 March 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant and 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. This is an appeal brought, with permission, by the appellant against a decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Mill (“the Judge”) dated 20 November 2024, in which the appellant’s protection and human rights appeal was dismissed.

Preliminary issue – non-attendance of the appellant

2. The appellant is a litigant in person. Although it appears he was represented at some point in the past, he submitted the application for permission to appeal the decision of the First-tier Tribunal without representation and gave his home address in the IAFT-4 form.

3. The appellant was not present at 10.00 when I started my list. Between 10.30 and 11.00 I asked my clerk to try and make enquiries as to his whereabouts. I checked the notice of hearing for today’s listing was sent to the address the appellant gave on the IAFT-4 form and there had been no change of contact details provided to the Tribunal since then.

4. The Tribunal clerk contacted the appellant’s previous representatives who helpfully provided the appellant’s last telephone contact number. The Tribunal called that number on numerous occasions throughout the morning but there was no answer. Voicemail was left but no response received.

5. At 11.07 I asked Miss Everett if she had any observations on the appellant’s absence. She had none. I observed that it was still relatively early and that the appellant may have experienced travel delays and to date he had been an engaged litigant in person so I indicated that we would wait another hour and continue to try and contact the appellant and re-assess at that point.

6. There was no communication from the appellant nor attendance at the Tribunal. I took the view that according to the Tribunal records he had been properly informed about the hearing today and that I would proceed to hear the appeal in his absence.

Summary of grounds

7. The appellant is an Egyptian national and raised a protection claim on the basis of his political opinion. As part of the evidence, he placed before the First-tier Tribunal, he produced documents together with translations relating to his prosecution in the Tanta Criminal Court. The Judge noted that the conviction verdict document identifies the appellant as Defendant number 10 and as being sentenced to 25 years imprisonment, whereas the appellant had said in his asylum interview that he was sentenced to a period of 15 years and that this was a material inconsistency [28].

8. The Judge recorded that the appellant was given an opportunity in examination in chief and cross examination to explain the inconsistency and it appears there was some dispute between the appellant’s reading of the document and the court interpreter which ended with the appellant indicating that his eyesight was poor and his did not have any glasses with him. The Judge concluded that the appellant had not been credible in that chapter of his oral evidence [29].

9. The Judge records that the issue was raised in the refusal decision and that efforts could have been made for the translation to be amended but that no such attempts have been made [30]. The Judge concluded that taking the evidence in the round, together with the appellant’s incredible explanations in his oral evidence, the documents were forgeries and that they were false. He attached no weight to them.

10. In his written grounds of appeal, the appellant explained that the discrepancy about the length of sentence had been corrected in the papers submitted to the First-tier Tribunal. At pages 26 and 27 of the appellant’s bundle there was a letter from the lawyer in Egypt clarifying that the ruling was a sentence of 15 years not 25 years. Furthermore, the document was translated again and confirmed that the sentence was 15 years. The appellant contends that the Judge overlooked this important evidence and did not mention it in his decision at all.

11. The appellant also raised a ground of appeal in relation to section 8 credibility issues but the grant of permission was limited to the first ground summarised above and so I say no more about the second ground of appeal.

12. In the absence of the appellant, I only heard submissions from Miss Everett. She confirmed that there was no rule 24 response but that the appeal was opposed.

13. Miss Everett on behalf of the respondent fairly accepted that the Judge seemed to have overlooked the documents referred to in the appellant’s grounds of appeal. However, she contended that the appeal had been dismissed for a number of credibility issues from paragraph 20 onwards and only some of those findings were challenged by the appellant. The appellant was afforded the opportunity to address the inconsistency in oral evidence and the Judge was not satisfied that his evidence was reliable. Miss Everett submitted that any error was immaterial, and it was difficult to see how the Judge would have come to a different conclusion in view of the totality of the concerns.

14. In answer to my question about on what basis or evidence produced by the respondent the Judge had been able to conclude that the documents were forgeries. Miss Everett was unable to point to anything other than the respondent had relied upon the approach in Tanveer Ahmed v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2002] UKIAT 00439 in the refusal decision at [8]. She agreed with me that a finding that the documents were forgeries goes a step further than finding the documents are unreliable based on a holistic credibility assessment.

15. In summary, Miss Everett submitted that there were enough adverse credibility findings that survived the appellant’s criticism of the Judge’s decision, such that the grounds were immaterial.

16. If I did find an error of law, Miss Everett was neutral as to what should happen but tentatively accepted that it might be difficult to preserve some credibility findings.

Conclusions

17. I do find that the First-tier Tribunal decision contains material errors of law for the following reasons.

18. The appellant’s appeal witness statement explains at paragraph 15-16 that he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in his absence but there had been a translation error in the document originally presented to the respondent which said 25 years in English, but the Arabic version did say he was sentenced to 15 years. Therefore, he attached a translation of this page and a statement from the lawyer to confirm the sentence was 15 years as he had stated in his claim. The appellant’s bundle contains the translation of the court judgement by Global Link London Ltd dated 23 February 2024 which states the sentence is 25 years imprisonment and an amended translation by Global Link London Ltd dated 28 October 2024 which states the sentence as 15 years imprisonment. The bundle also contains two declarations from the Egyptian lawyer, dated 24 August 2023 and 8 September 2024 confirming the appellant was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Although the Judge makes reference to the lawyer’s letter [26] there is no reference to the fact that it also confirms that the appellant was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. The Judge concluded that in the absence of the lawyer’s ID documentation, it “dilutes the weight” which can be attached to the documents. There is no mention at all of the amended translation with the corrected period of imprisonment. The Judge went to some lengths to point out the opportunity the appellant had to correct this translation issue [29] but fails to appreciate, as he clearly explained in his witness statement, that he had provided corrected documentation. As Miss Everett accepted, they have been overlooked by the Judge.

19. This aspect of the appellant’s claim, namely being prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to a lengthy period of imprisonment for alleged activity with the Muslim Brotherhood is of critical importance and at the core of his claim. The Judge has failed to take relevant evidence into account when assessing the potentially corroborative documentation. The Judge has further overstepped by concluding that the documents were forgeries in the absence of an allegation or evidence to that effect.

20. Although there are other credibility findings that are not challenged in the grounds of appeal, it is my finding that it is impossible to safely extrapolate the other credibility findings from the very strong and erroneous adverse conclusion of the Judge on the documentation that goes to the core of the case. The conclusion that the appellant had advanced false documents in support of a core issue in his case is likely to have impacted the Judge’s overall credibility assessment. It cannot be said that the Judge would have reached the same conclusion notwithstanding the errors.

21. I have considered whether any findings can be preserved but in light of what I say above I conclude that there are no findings that can be preserved.

Notice of Decision

22. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of material errors of law and is set aside with no preserved findings.

23. The appeal will be remitted back to the First-tier Tribunal for remaking to be heard by a different judge.

E Daykin

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

11 March 2025