The decision



IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000251

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/67791/2023
LP/08444/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 16th of July 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MAHMOOD
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HUGHES

Between

MJ
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Holmes, Counsel.
For the Respondent: Dr Ibisi, a Senior Home Office Presenting Officer.

Heard at Manchester Civil Justice Centre on 1 July 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 a Judge of the First-tier Tribunal (‘The Judge’), promulgated following a hearing in Manchester on 30 October 2024, in which the Judge dismissed his appeal against the Respondent’s decision to refuse his protection claim.
2. The basis of the Appellant’s claim is recorded briefly by the Judge at [4]-[5] in the following terms:
4. The Appellant’s claims to fear persecution if returned to Pakistan on the basis that he has posted on Facebook in support of the former Pakistan Prime Minister, Imran Khan, and that if returned to Pakistan he will be imprisoned and killed by the Pakistan authorities for his support of Imran Khan.
5. The Appellant had also claimed that he feared his cousin who had threatened him as not being his father’s biological son but now says that he no longer fears his cousin.
4. The Respondent’s decision dated 11 December 2023 rejected each limb of the Appellant’s claim, and as to the maintained fear of return by reason of his political activities found:
• The material facts of your claim which would have created a real risk of persecution are not accepted.
• There is no real risk of harm because you are no longer being threatened by your cousin and the army/government have no reason to target you as you do not have a large political presence and do not pose a threat to them.
• You have not been politically active in UK (AIR2: 16) so there is no reason to believe you would continue to be active upon return to Pakistan, meaning you would not be adversely targeted by the government or military.
5. The Judge’s findings are set out from [9] of the decision under challenge leading to it being found at [16]-[17]:
16. I find that the evidence presented by the Appellant is insufficient to provide a reasonable degree of likelihood that he would be liable to persecution if he were to express his political beliefs openly on return. He has not provided evidence to suggest that he would have the profile that would bring with it a risk of persecution as described in the CPIN [Pakistan: Political parties and affiliation Version 2.0 May 2023] nor has he shown himself to be at risk as a senior party member. The Appellant has not discharged the burden on him.
17. In light of the above I find that the Appellant does not have a well-founded fear of persecution on return. As the case was pursued purely as an asylum claim this concludes the Appeal.
6. On 27 November 2024 the Appellant lodged an application for permission to appeal the Judge’s decision. That application was refused by a First-tier Tribunal Judge, before being renewed before the Upper Tribunal in a further application in which the Appellant alleges the Judge had erred in law in two respects. The grounds are pleaded in the two applications in an unhelpfully discursive manner, but we propose to summarise them as follows:
Ground (1): That the Judge approached the Respondent’s CPIN as if it were determinative evidence, rather than a piece of the entirety of the evidence that had to be considered in the round. Furthermore, in any event, the Judge was wrong to rely upon that CPIN as it had been withdrawn by the Respondent on 10 July 2024, prior to the date of the hearing.
Ground (2): That the Judge erred by considering as live the issue of risk to the Appellant on account of his political views, when this had never been a point with which the Respondent had taken issue. The decision under appeal was entirely premised on the proposition that as the Appellant was not genuinely politically motivated, he would cease his activates and face no risk upon return. Accordingly, the Judge was wrong to treat the matter as a live issue in the appeal, and was wrong to go on to dismiss the appeal on that basis.
7. Permission to appeal was considered by Upper Tribunal Judge Hoffman on 13 March 2025, and granted in the following terms:
Ground 1: While I am not convinced by the criticisms of the way in which the judge relied upon the CPIN per se at [15] and [16], I am however satisfied that it is at least arguable that the judge erred in law by relying on a CPIN that had been withdrawn by the respondent prior to the date of the hearing.
Ground 2: I am less convinced by the argument that it was not open to the judge to consider the risk posed to the appellant on return to Pakistan. It seems clear from the decision letter that the respondent did not accept the material facts of the appellant’s claim would have created a real risk of persecution for him. Nevertheless, I do not restrict the grant of permission.
8. The Respondent has not filed a Rule 24 reply.
Discussion and analysis
9. A person challenging a decision of a judge of the First-tier Tribunal must have regard to the guidance provided by the Court of Appeal in in Volpi v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 462 at [2], Ullah v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ 201 at [26], and Hamilton v Barrow and Others [2024] EWCA Civ 888 at [30-31], which we have.
10. At the outset of the hearing before us we indicated our provisional view that there appeared to be force in the first ground of appeal.
11. Dr Ibisi submitted that she had no instructions to concede the appeal, and that she was minded to continue to resist the appeal. However, she then acknowledged that the Judge’s findings as to risk on return as a result of his sur place activities in the United Kingdom were predicated upon an acceptance of the material set out in the withdrawn CPIN. In the circumstances, she did not wish to make further submissions, other than as to our preserving no findings of fact made by the First-tier Tribunal.
12. Mr Holmes invited us to remit the matter to the First-tier Tribunal, whilst preserving the findings of fact made by the Judge as to the Appellant’s political views being genuinely held.
13. We satisfied that the Judge made a material error of law in his decision in placing significant reliance upon the CPIN that had been withdrawn, and which therefore did not provide accurate country information on the issue that was at the heart of this appeal. We would observe, however, that it is disappointing that both Mr Holmes and the Presenting Officer before the First-tier Tribunal had themselves placed reliance upon the withdrawn CPIN at the hearing of the appeal, and they had thereby led the Judge into error.
14. Having found the above material error of law established, as pleaded in ground 1, consideration of ground 2 is unnecessary.
15. It follows that we set aside the First-tier Tribunal decision.
16. Applying AEB v SSHD [2022] EWCA Civ 1512 and Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 00046 (IAC), we have considered whether to retain the matter for remaking in the Upper Tribunal, in line with the general principle set out in paragraph 7 of the Senior President’s Practice Statement. We are satisfied that given the nature of the error of law in the First-tier Tribunal decision, it would be appropriate to remit this matter so that the Appellant has an opportunity to present his appeal on a proper footing before a First-tier Tribunal Judge. In the circumstances, we are not minded to preserve any findings of fact.
Notice of Decision and Directions
17. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside for the reasons set out above with no findings preserved.
18. The remaking of the decision in the appeal is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal at Manchester to be remade by a Judge other than Judge McQuillan.


Leighton Hughes

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

9 July 2025