Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000170

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/02470/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

18th June 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE GREER

Between

ZZ
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Broachwalla, of counsel
For the Respondent: Ms Newton, a Senior Home Office Presenting Officer.

Heard at Manchester Civil Justice Centre on 20 May 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. The Appellant appeals with permission a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (‘Judge Meyler’), promulgated following a hearing at Manchester on 7 November 2024, in which the Judge dismissed the appeal against the refusal of his application for international protection and human Rights Claim.

2. The Appellant is a citizen of Algeria. The protection claim was made on 28 May 2021 and refused by the Secretary of State in a decision dated 24 November 2023.

3. It is the Appellant’s case that he was sexually abused when he was a child and that he feared that those who abused him when he was a child would harm him if he returned to Algeria. He argued that he had developed a relationship with his partner and that his removal from the United Kingdom would cause a disproportionate interference with his enjoyment of a protected family life.

4. In a written decision promulgated on 21 November 2024 the First-Tier Tribunal dismissed the Appellant’s appeal. At [16] – [21], the First-Tier Tribunal dismissed the Appellant’s protection appeal. At [22] – [47], the First-Tier Tribunal dismissed the Appellant’s human Rights Appeal.

5. The Appellant was not represented before the First tier Tribunal. But following the promulgation of the First tier Tribunal’s decision he instructed legal representatives. The Appellant sought permission to appeal which was refused by another judge of the First-tier Tribunal but granted on a renewed application by the Upper Tribunal on 18 February 2025, the operative part of the grant being in the following terms:

4. In relation to the human rights claim, grounds 2 (durable relationship) and 5 (proportionality) tend
towards general disagreements but it is just arguable that the judge’s findings relating to the appellant’s relationship with a British citizen in the UK were somewhat confused and unclear. On the one hand she found that the appellant’s family life was engaged, but on the other she concluded that it was not a durable relationship. It is also arguable that the judge failed to consider whether there were
‘insurmountable obstacles’ to family life continuing outside the UK.

5. Grounds 3 (‘very significant obstacles’) and 4 (medical issues) are very weak and have not been properly particularised. The judge made positive findings about obstacles in the appellant’s home area but found that there was no evidence to show obstacles to reintegration in another area. The judge took into account the fact that the appellant might need counselling but considered that he could obtain treatment in his home country. Nothing in ground 4 identifies any reliable evidence before the judge to show that the treatment the appellant might need was not likely to be available in his country of origin. Ground 4 refers to comments made by a GP in the UK, whose qualification to comment on the availability of treatment in the appellant’s country of origin is unclear. Although I consider that these grounds do not have a good prospect of success, I grant permission solely because these issues formed part of the holistic assessment of Article 8 that the judge was required to undertake. Having granted permission in relation to grounds 2 and 5 it is appropriate for permission to be granted in relation to the other grounds relating to the human rights claim.

The Hearing

6. The matter came before me for an error of law hearing. In his submissions, Mr Broachwalla significantly recast his case. In respect of Ground 2, he argued that although it had not been initially pleaded in this manner, the First Tier Tribunal has failed to take into account material considerations by overlooking material evidence before it.

7. For her part, with her customary professionalism, Ms Newton recognised that it appeared from the information available to her that a sizable bundle of evidence had been placed before the Tribunal and that it is apparent that this bundle had not been placed before the Judge. Miss Newton invited me to set aside the findings relating to the Appellant’s Human Rights Appeal and remit the matter to a differently constituted First Tier Tribunal.

8. I am grateful, as ever, to both advocates for their substantial assistance in this matter.

Discussion and analysis

9. In light of Miss Newton’s entirely appropriate concession, it is not necessary for me to say much more.

10. The parties agreed before me that the voluminous Appellant’s bundle, contained within the consolidated bundle before the Upper Tribunal, had been filed with the First-tier Tribunal in advance of the hearing before Judge Meyler. Miss Newton told me that this was apparent from Mr Brannigan’s note of the hearing. The parties also agreed that, on a fair reading of the determination, it is clear that the bundle was not placed before the Tribunal Judge. Miss Newton accepted that the list of documents at [8] of the First-tier Tribunal’s determination is not a complete list of the documents that had been filed. She told me that the only logical inference is that, although the bundle had been filed with the Tribunal, it was not placed before the Judge.

11. The bundle in question included evidence of the Appellant’s difficult relations with his family in Algeria, and evidence of the nature and extent of the Appellant’s relationship with his partner in the United Kingdom. Having been made without sight of that evidence, the Tribunal’s adverse findings at [25], in respect of the Appellant’s relationship with his family, and at [33], in respect of the durability of his relationship with his partner, are unsafe.

12. The Judge in this case had an extremely difficult task. She was confronted with a litigant in person advancing a legally and factually complex appeal. The hearing before her was, by any measure, difficult to manage. She managed the hearing with exemplary judgecraft. Leaving aside the error identified by the parties, the Judge’s determination is a paradigm of brevity and clarity. Her assessment of the evidence before her was meticulous, and the findings she made were entirely open to her on the evidence she had. However, whilst the reasoning displayed in the determination is cogent, it cannot be said that the Judge’s findings and conclusions would inevitably have been the same had she considered all the evidence that ought to have been before her.

13. This is the sort of case to which Mr Justice McCloskey referred in MM (unfairness; E & R) Sudan [2014] UKUT 105 (IAC). For the reasons I have given, the Appellant has been deprived of a fair hearing, and the part of the determination dealing with the Appellant’s Human Rights Appeal ([22]–[47]) must be set aside.

14. It will be a matter for the First-tier Tribunal to determine what directions to make. The Appellant’s new representatives will no doubt ensure that a consolidated bundle is filed with the Tribunal well in advance of any future hearing.

15. On behalf of the Appellant, Mr Broachwalla accepted that the Appellant has not been given permission to appeal in respect of his challenge to the findings relating to the Protection Appeal. Accordingly, the First-tier Tribunal’s findings in this regard remain undisturbed.

16. The issue of whether the matter could be reheard in the Upper Tribunal was raised. However, the parties agreed that, as the Appellant has been deprived of a fair hearing in respect of his Human Rights Appeal, the most appropriate venue for the decision to be remade is the First-tier Tribunal. Having regard to the relevant Practice Direction and the principles considered in AEB v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 1512 and Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 46 (IAC) I consider remittal to the First-tier Tribunal appropriate as extensive fact-finding will be required and the appellant should not lose the benefit of the two tier decision-making process given the nature of the error.

Notice of Decision

1. Paragraphs [22] – [47] of the First Tier Tribunal determination are set aside.

2. The findings at paragraphs [16] to [21] of the decision of Judge of the First Tier Tribunal Meyler of 18th November 2024 are to be preserved.

3. The matter is to be remitted for the First Tier Tribunal to be heard by any Judge other than Judge Meyler

J. Greer

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

14th June 2025