Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-000498
First-tier Tribunal No: HU/58077/2023
LH/07744/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 2 August 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LODATO

Between

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Appellant
and

MAHFOUDH ABDALLAH NASOOR
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Diwnycz, Senior Presenting Officer
For the Respondent: Mr Hussein, counsel

Heard at Bradford, Phoenix House, on 13 July 2026

DECISION AND REASONS

Introduction and Background

1. The Secretary of State for the Home Department appeals with permission against the decision, dated 19 December 2024, of a judge of the First-tier Tribunal (‘the judge’) to allow the appeal on human rights grounds.

2. The appeal arose in the context of the refusal of the respondent’s application for entry clearance to join his father in the UK under the provisions of paragraph 297 of the Immigration Rules.

Appeal to the Upper Tribunal

3. The Secretary of State was granted permission to appeal against the decision on the ground that the judge had arguably applied the lower standard of proof, a reasonable degree of likelihood, to an appeal which could only be decided on the higher standard of the balance of probabilities.

4. At the error of law hearing, I heard oral submissions from both parties. Mr Diwnycz did not add any oral submissions of substance to the written grounds and indicated that he was not pressing the case with “vim and vigour”. I address any submissions of significance in the discussion section below.

Discussion

5. There can be no dispute that the necessary facts to determine a human rights appeal in the context of paragraph 297 of the Immigration Rules is the balance of probabilities. The judge introduced her decision by self-directing in precisely this way at [5]. The respondent argued in the grounds of appeal that paragraphs [14], [20(ii)] and [22 {incorrectly numbered as “10” in the decision}] all tended to indicate that a lower standard, a reasonable degree of likelihood consistent with protection matters, was in fact applied when assessing the relevant facts. The challenged paragraphs of the decision are copied below with the contentious parts emboldened:

[14] When this evidence is considered as a whole, I find that it provides a compelling and plausible account of an infant child left in the care of a female relative when the sponsor fled, who then had to leave the village and flee himself to the forest with a group of women and children when AI Shabaab attacked. Eventually they made their way to Kenya and onwards to Tanzania where contact was made with Ali Barwan Sheikh who has confirmed he is a friend of the sponsor and of his father. The sponsor therefore was not wholly inconsistent when he said that he had arranged to leave the Appellant with Ali Barwan Sheikh in his oral evidence. It is reasonably likely that he either he did not understand that he was being asked to go back to the very beginning of the chronology or it is also plausible that he may not know all of the details about the time immediately after he fled in so far as they affected his son as he had lost contact with him.

[20 (ii)] The Appellant has been cared for by a succession of carers and has moved carers in response to circumstances such as the development of old age and illnesses (Ali Barwan Sheikh) and death (Haji Walid Aman). I find it is reasonably likely that the sponsor is the person who has authorised the change of carer each time. There is clear evidence of this in the letter from Ali Barwan Sheikh when he writes:” The above named boy was brought to me on the instructions of his father Abdallah Nassor who is a British Subject living in the UK...”

[22 {10}] It is reasonable to find that as the Appellant has had to move to different carers over time that none of them have in fact had responsibility for him and that they have been exercising care for him at the direction of the sponsor.

6. Seen in isolation, it might well be thought that the judge was applying a lower standard of proof but this is to confuse how a judge goes about considering facts in the round. The judge was bound to decide whether, ultimately, the appellant met the requirements of the rules according to the civil standard of proof as per her accurate self-direction at the outset of the decision. This does not equate to the judge being required to assess each and every aspect of a multi-faceted factual matrix to the same standard. It is an analytically sustainable approach to consider discrete factual elements of a party’s factual case and conclude that some component parts of that analysis are stronger than others. Examples of perhaps stronger elements are to be seen at [18], where the judge referred to an unchallenged death certificate relating to one of the people who provided care for the appellant and [20 (vii)] where the arrangements made for mental health treatment was characterised as “strong evidence that it is the sponsor who takes major decisions for the appellant”. Read as a whole, I am unable to conclude that the judge applied a lower standard of proof than the law required. The decision would have been improved by a clear articulation of the applicable standard of proof when the ultimate assessment was conducted at the conclusion of the decision (as it was at the outset), but reading the decision fairly and purposefully, it is clear that the correct standard was applied in substance.

Notice of Decision

The judge’s decision did not involve errors of law. The appeal against the decision is accordingly dismissed.

P Lodato

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

28 July 2026