Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000472

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/60159/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On the 12 August 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE PINDER

Between

B H M
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Ul-Haq, Counsel instructed by J M Wilson Solicitors.
For the Respondent: Ms A Arif, Senior Presenting Officer.

Heard at Birmingham Civil Justice Centre on 23 June 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 the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (‘the FtT / the Judge’) dated 17th December 2024, in which the Judge dismissed the Appellant’s protection and human rights appeal.
2. I have maintained the Anonymity Order in favour of the Appellant. I consider that the specific facts of this appeal, the maintenance of the integrity of the United Kingdom’s immigration system and the Appellant having raised a claim to international protection, are such that an anonymity order is a justified derogation from the principle of open justice.
Factual background and procedural history
3. The Appellant is an Iraqi citizen, of Kurdish ethnicity born in 1994. He entered the UK in January 2021 and claimed asylum in October 2021. The Appellant’s protection and human rights claim was refused by the Respondent on 24th October 2023 and the Appellant appealed that decision to the FtT.
4. In summary, the Appellant’s claim is grounded in his political opinion (imputed or actual) following his employment by a company called O (initialised for the purposes of anonymity) in August 2020. The owners of the company include three persons, whom the Appellant claimed were high ranking members of the PUK. During his employment, the Appellant was asked by the secretary of one of the owners to keep a record of the company’s financial transactions. I will refer to this owner as O1. As a result of this task, the Appellant discovered that one of the other owners was stealing from the company. I will refer to this second and other owner as O2. It is the Appellant’s claim that O1 was later removed from the company and all of O2’ men were either beaten or killed. The Appellant also claims to have been beaten and threatened as a result of his discoveries. When the Appellant’s maternal cousin informed the Appellant that O1’s secretary had also been kidnapped, the Appellant decided to go into hiding and flee Iraq.
5. As part of his protection claim, the Appellant also pursued a sur place claim, based on political activities undertaken here in the UK.
6. The Appellant’s appeal against the Respondent’s decision of 24th October 2023 was heard by the Judge on 22nd October 2024.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal
7. At [15], the Judge recorded the issues in dispute This included the parties’ agreement that there was no sufficiency of protection nor a viable internal relocation option should the Appellant’s claim be found to be credible. It was also confirmed that the Appellant was not pursuing an Article 8 ECHR claim.
8. The Judge summarised at [24]-[27] the parties’ competing submissions for arguing against and for the credibility of the Appellant’s claim. The Judge then went on to consider at [28] the country expert report of Allison Pargeter and at [30]-[32], the Judge concluded as follows:
30. I note the lower standard of proof in such cases, with regards to the expert report I agree the expert must take the appellant's account at the highest and answer the questions put to them. I do not accept this detracts from the quality of the report. However, when considering the contents of the report taking the appellant's account at the highest the expert was unable to corroborate the appellant's account, and it appears the organisation he claimed to work for is probably not operating anymore. There is nothing to show the prominent figures the appellant mentions are connected to this organisation when they were operating.
31. Whilst the expert corroborates that RESA exists and their aims, she makes no comments on their response to the appellant and the contents of their investigation. Whilst I can accept that the appellant worked for (O) the expert report takes me no further as to the appellant's core claim of him being asked to gather information and him uncovering corruption.
32. Whilst I can accept that corruption is a common occurrence and such security firms are linked to PUK officials to such security firms, I find the report is limited evidentially in corroborating the core details of the appellant's account.”
9. At [33]-[34], the Judge considered the difficulties that the Appellant faced with being able to provide corroborative evidence and the Judge assessed the Appellant’s evidence in respect of the investigation carried out by RESA, a not-for-profit organisation operating in the Kurdish region. This included concerns arising from the documentation issued by RESA and the fact that the Appellant had not sought to take formal court proceedings and instead pursued his complaint to RESA. For these reasons, the Judge confirmed that they placed little weight on the evidence from RESA and found that their letters impacted the credibility of the Appellant. At [34], the Judge confirmed that she did not therefore accept the core of the Appellant’s account.
10. At [35]-[39], the Judge turned to the Appellant’s sur place claim rejecting his claim to be at risk on return on this basis, primarily because the Appellant had not used his full name in the posts that he had published on the internet.
11. Accordingly, the Judge dismissed the Appellant’s claim on all grounds.
The Appellant’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal
12. The Appellant secured permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal pursuing two grounds of appeal:
(i) Ground 1 – the Judge erred in their assessment of the country expert report and in requiring corroboration of the Appellant’s claim;
(ii) Ground 2 – the Judge erred in their approach to the credibility of the Appellant’s claims, including pre-flight and sur place, and the Appellant’s accounts of the same.
13. A different judge of the FtT granted permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal observing that the Appellant’s submission had some merit. The Judge continued that “(w)hilst the Judge was entitled to conclude the expert report was of limited evidential value in corroborating the Appellant’s claim to have been targeted, it is at least arguable that (the Judge) applied too high a standard in practice and failed to have due regard to relevant guidance in MAH (Egypt) v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 216 when considering all relevant evidence in the round.” The Judge granting permission added that it was not clear whether (the Judge) engaged with the Appellant’s oral and written testimony so as to consider the weight to be attached to factors such as consistency or sufficiency of detail (see KB & AH (credibility-structured approach) Pakistan [2017] UKUT 491. As such, it is arguable there was a lack of adequate reasoning.
14. In reply, the Respondent did not seek to file and serve a reply under Rule 24 of the Procedure Rules.
15. At the hearing, both parties’ advocates made further oral submissions on each of the grounds of appeal pursued and Ms Arif, on behalf of the Respondent, defended the FtT’s decision. I have addressed the Appellant’s written pleadings and the parties’ respective oral submissions in the section below when setting out my analysis and conclusions.
16. At the end of the hearing, I reserved my decision and provide this below with my reasons.
Analysis and conclusions
17. I address the Appellant’s two grounds of appeal as these largely overlap with each other.
18. It is clear from the Judge’s decision that the country expert report and the Judge’s concerns that this was not capable of corroborating the Appellant’s account was an important part of the Judge’s reasoning for finding against the Appellant in relation to his subjective claim. Whilst the matters addressed by the Judge in relation to the expert report were open to the Judge, I agree with Mr Ul-Haq that the Judge has required corroboration for the Appellant’s account in the form of the expert report.
19. Even if I am wrong on the above, I also agree with Mr Ul-Haq that there is a lack of engagement with the Appellant’s own account, provided for in his statements, interviews with the Respondent and so forth. This is particularly important in light of the matters noted by the Judge at [29]:
“29. At 2.7 the expert states there is nothing to show (the owners and claimed prominent members of the PUK) are connected to (O). But that this does not mean that they were not involved with them but just that information is not in the public domain. This is common in security firms in Iraq, and it is said it is likely they would have strong ties with PUK. At section 3 of the report the expert focusses on corruption in the region and likelihood of the appellant's account. (…)”
20. The Judge returned to the accepted country background information that corruption was a common occurrence and that security firms are linked to PUK officials at [32]. With the Judge accepting that the Appellant worked for O, a security firm, it was incumbent in my view to engage further with the Appellant’s own account and to follow the structured approach to credibility assessment, as considered in KB & AH (credibility-structured approach) Pakistan [2017] UKUT 491.
21. The only two reasons that the Judge appears to have given for finding against the credibility of the Appellant’s own account is that firstly, the RESA letters and the concerns held by the Judge in this respect impact on the issue of credibility and secondly, the Appellant did not pursue his own court proceedings. With regards to the latter, it is not explained how this is capable of damaging the credibility of the Appellant’s account – there could be many reasons for the Appellant choosing to take one course of action over another and this is not otherwise recorded in the Judge’s decision.
22. I remind myself that it is not necessary for a judge to set out every aspect of the evidence before them and to address every issue raised in their decision but when the core of the issues in dispute turn on the credibility of an appellant’s account, limiting the consideration of this to the expert report and other documentary evidence relied upon is insufficient and contrary to well-established case-law on the issue of credibility assessments. For the same reasons, I do not accept Ms Arif’s submissions that the grounds amount to a mere disagreement with the Judge’s findings.
23. I am satisfied that the above amounts to material errors of law, sufficient to set aside the decision of the FtT. Considering the Appellant’s sur place claim remains connected to his claim concerning events in Iraq prior to his departure, it is not necessary for me to address the Appellant’s second ground of appeal any further and it remains necessary for the Appellant’s claim as a whole to be considered afresh.
24. For the reasons above, I am satisfied that the material errors of law made by the Judge as pursued by the Appellant are made out. I am satisfied that the First-tier Tribunal’s decision to dismiss the appeal should be set aside pursuant to Section 12(2)(a) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 with no findings of fact preserved.
25. I have considered and applied the guidance in paragraph 7 of the Senior President’s Practice Statement as well as the guidance in AEB v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 1512 and Begum (remaking or remittal) [2023] UKUT 46 IAC. The parties were agreed that if I was to find in favour of the Appellant, it would be appropriate for the matter to be heard afresh in the First-tier Tribunal before a different judge and that no findings of fact should be preserved. Having considered the guidance referred to above, I am satisfied that such a disposal is appropriate considering there needs to be a full assessment again of the credibility of the Appellant’s claims.

Notice of Decision
26. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 17th December 2024 contained material errors of law and is set aside.
27. The appeal is to be remitted back to the First-tier Tribunal for remaking afresh before a different judge.

Sarah Pinder

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

07.08.2025