Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000553

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/53234/2024
LP/07300/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 28th of November 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’BRIEN
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RHYS-DAVIES

Between

M I
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE
FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr. P. Duffy of Counsel, instructed by Messrs Farani Taylor, Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms. S. Rushforth, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre on 21 October 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the Appellant is granted anonymity because he is an asylum seeker and the protection of his safety outweighs the presumption in favour of open justice.

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 him. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The Appellant is a Pakistani national. He arrived in the UK with entry clearance as a student on 22 September 2022. He claimed asylum on 28 November 2022. The basis of his claim is that he is a gay man.
2. The Respondent refused the Appellant’s claim on 2 February 2024, taking the view that the Appellant’s claim was not credible. The Respondent accepted that if the Appellant had proved that he was an openly gay man, then he would be at risk of persecution on return, and that there would be no sufficiency of protection nor internal relocation available. The Appellant appealed.
3. The Appellant’s appeal was heard by a First-tier Tribunal Judge (“the Judge”) on 29 November 2024. In a Decision and Reasons promulgated on 17 December 2024 (“the Decision”), the Judge dismissed the Appellant’s appeal on all grounds.
4. The Appellant sought permission to appeal the Decision. Another First-tier Tribunal Judge refused permission. The Appellant renewed his application directly to the Upper Tribunal. On 3 April 2025, Upper Tribunal Judge Gray granted permission.
Background
5. The Appellant’s case is that he comes from a strict Islamic family, who live in an area of Pakistan where strict Islamic beliefs are commonly held. He says he is gay and that he embarked on a secret relationship with another man, MAS. Both the Appellant and MAS came to the UK in the autumn of 2022 and continued their relationship here, in a more open fashion. The Appellant says that compromising photographs of him and MAS in a gay nightclub were sent to his brother, by an unknown person. The Appellant’s brother then shared this with the rest of the Appellant’s family and they in turn informed MAS’s family. The Appellant says that the families have threatened to kill him and MAS if they return
6. The Appellant, MAS, and another witness, SM, gave evidence before the Judge.
7. The Judge made the following findings at [17]ff. of his Decision:
(i) The sole issue for determination was the credibility of the Appellant’s claim [19];
(ii) The country background evidence supports the Appellant’s account that he and MAS did not reveal their relationship to anyone in Pakistan for fear of stigma and harm and that the Appellant’s parents, having found out about his sexuality, have rejected him and threatened him [23] – [24];
(iii) Section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004 (“the 2004 Act”) applies and merits weight because of the Appellant’s misleading behaviours [25] – [30];
(iv) The Appellant has given a broadly consistent but very limited account of many aspects of his core claim [31];
(v) While some points made by the Respondent did not merit weight [32] – [34], the witness statements of the Appellant and MAS provided very little substantive further information about their relationship, despite being on notice of this issue since the RFRL, and this weighs against their account [35] – [37];
(vi) The cross-examination of the Appellant and his witnesses about the living arrangements of the Appellant and MAS did not reveal any material discrepancies [38];
(vii) The evidence of the Appellant and MAS about their families found out about their relationship is inherently implausible [39];
(viii) MS’s evidence that he believes the Appellant and MAS to be a couple merits weight but it is only part of the assessment. He has only known them since the Appellant brought his asylum claim and what he says he has seen of their interactions has all been in that context [40];
(ix) How the Appellant and MAS interacted in the hearing room, including public displays of affection, merits no weight [41];
(x) The photographs taken in the UK of the Appellant and MAS together are of limited probative value. It is also notable that there is no documentary evidence, whether messages, texts, photographs or otherwise, to show any contact between them while they were in Pakistan, let alone that they were in a relationship at that time [42];
(xi) The evidence of the Appellant and MAS living together in the UK is limited, given they claim to have cohabited at two different addresses. There is also no evidence from a third person who is said to have lived at one of those two addresses with the Appellant and MAS. The absence of this evidence, which could reasonably be expected and when there is no reasonable explanation for its absence, undermines the credibility of the claim [44] – [45];
(xii) The media evidence said to report the shooting of the Appellant’s cousin and others did not establish that claim, because the Pakistani ID cards provided to prove the claimed family relationship had not been translated. Even if the family relationship were proved, the evidence is of limited value in proving whether the Appellant is gay [46];
(xiii) When considered in the round, the Appellant’s account of his sexuality is not credible. He has not proved he is gay or that he would be regarded as gay by potential persecutors [48].
8. The Appellant pleads four Grounds of Appeal. It suffices to say at this point that UTJ Grey made clear that she was “not persuaded as to the arguability of any of the other matters” save for Ground 4, though she did not restrict permission given the nature of the point to be argued in that Ground.
9. Ground 4 pleads that the Judge erred when, having found that the appeal must fail on asylum grounds, stated as follows: “It therefore follows that I find the Appellant’s claim for asylum fails. In view of my findings, the claim for humanitarian protection is dismissed on the same basis” [49].
10. Ground 4 complains that the Judge failed to appreciate that asylum claim was assessed at the standard of the balance of probabilities, whereas the lower standard of proof applies to the humanitarian protection grounds and there is no indication that the Judge used the lower standard at [49].
11. The Upper Tribunal then made Directions to bring the appeal to a hearing before us to determine whether the Judge made a material error of law.
The Hearing
12. The appeal had been case-managed by the Upper Tribunal on the basis that the Appellant was unrepresented. The IAUT1 form, while accompanied by detailed Grounds of Appeal, stated that he had no representative (though he had been represented by solicitors for the proceedings before the First-tier, and by Counsel instructed by those solicitors at the hearing before the Judge).
13. As a result of the Appellant being apparently unrepresented, the Upper Tribunal arranged for a Pushtu interpreter to attend the hearing and also took on the responsibility of preparing the consolidated hearing bundle.
14. In the circumstances, we were surprised when Mr. Duffy attended as Counsel for the Appellant, that he said he had drafted the Grounds of Appeal, and when he explained that he was instructed by Messrs Farani Taylor, solicitors, who were acting for the Appellant (and who were not acting in the First-tier proceedings).
15. We note that email correspondence including a Letter of Authority was sent to the Upper Tribunal by Farani Taylor on 17 October 2025, though the Letter of Authority had been signed by the Appellant a week earlier, on 10 October 2025. This was uploaded to CE-File on the day of the hearing.
16. Mr. Duffy agreed that the interpreter could be released and undertook to pass along our concern that Farani Taylor had not notified the Upper Tribunal that they were acting as promptly as it might have done. This would have saved the public expense of booking the interpreter as well as the creation of the hearing bundle.
17. All Parties agreed that all relevant materials were contained the consolidated bundle of 308 pages (“CB1-308”).
18. Mr. Duffy relied on all Grounds.
19. Ms. Rushforth confirmed that the Respondent opposed the appeal and relied on the r.24 response. The Respondent’s position is that the Judge directed himself correctly regarding the standards of proof at [16] of the Decision and that he should be taken to have applied the law correctly unless something indicates otherwise. The Respondent contends that the Judge explained his findings adequately and that it is difficult to see how the Appellant could succeed on humanitarian protection grounds.
20. We reserved our decision.
Decision
21. We find that there is no material error of law in this case. We reach that conclusion for the following reasons.
22. Taking Ground 4 first, we bear in mind that the well-known principles of the restraint required of us when assessing the Decision, as summarised at [26] of Ullah [2024] EWCA Civ 201
23. At [16] the Judge set out at the two distinct standards of proof applicable in the appeal before him. The Judge, having made his findings on the asylum grounds (as summarised above) then dealt with the humanitarian protection appeal more shortly at [49]: “It therefore follows that I find the Appellant’s claim for asylum fails. In view of my findings, the claim for humanitarian protection is dismissed on the same basis”
24. The Decision must be read as a whole. We are not persuaded that the specialist Tribunal below failed to carry forward the applicable standard of proof, as correctly set out at [16], when addressing the humanitarian protection grounds at [49] .
25. The Appellant’s case, at its highest, is that the Judge ought to have included at [49], after “In view of my findings…”, something like “…the Appellant’s account is not even reasonably likely to be true”, before ending as he did. There is no need for the Judge to have done this, when the standard of proof was correctly set out at [16] and there is nothing in the Decision to state that he applied the wrong standard of proof at [49].
26. In particular, there is nothing in any of the adverse findings to indicate that the Judge found against the appellant only on the balance of probabilities. Indeed, Mr. Duffy accepted that, if [49] read, “It therefore follows that I find the Appellant’s claim for humanitarian protection fails. In view of my findings, the claim for asylum is dismissed on the same basis”, there would be no arguable error. In doing so, he must accept that the findings of fact were made with the lower standard of proof in mind.
27. Turning now to the other Grounds, contrary to Ground 1, the Judge did not err at [43] by taking account of the lack of evidence that the Appellant and MAS had had any contact in Pakistan, let alone that they had been in a relationship. Again, the Decision needs to be read as a whole. Having properly considered the absence of detail in the evidence of the Appellant and MAS, despite them being on notice from the Respondent that this was an issue [36] – [37], the Judge was entitled to note that evidence that ought reasonably to be available had not been provided, and to take that into account at [43]. This is not an impermissible requirement for corroboration.
28. In terms of Ground 2, the Judge did not err in his consideration of the evidence of the claimed cohabitation of the Appellant and MAS in the UK, for the same reasons. Contrary to Mr. Duffy’s submissions, this was not a peripheral issue. The Appellant elected to advance his case on the basis that he and MAS were in a long-standing relationship and that they had cohabited across two addresses over a period of months or years. It was the Appellant’s choice to put that case forwards. There is no requirement that people in a relationship must cohabit for it to be genuine and the Judge does not suggest otherwise. What the Judge did, and was entitled to do, was weigh up the documentary evidence of the claimed long-term cohabitation and find it wanting. His reasons for that are adequately explained and were open to him. The Judge was then entitled to find that the lack of further and better evidence of the claimed cohabitation weighed against the credibility of the claims.
29. Lastly (Ground 3), the Judge’s reasoning and findings on the Appellant’s (and MAS’s) claims about how their families found out about their claimed relationship, were also open to him. The Judge does not simply find against the Appellant on the basis that his answer to how the photograph came to reach his family was “I don’t know”, as claimed in the grounds. At [39], the Judge properly considers the plausibility of the account through the “spectacles” of the country background material set out earlier in the Decision, and in the context of the Appellant’s own account of his family’s strict morals.
30. In conclusion, we agree with the observations of UTJ Grey when granting permission that “the Judge conducted a careful and balanced assessment of the Appellant’s account and the evidence, and provided cogent reasons for [his] findings”.

Notice of Decision
1. The Judge’s decision did not involve the making of an error of law.
2. The Judge’s decision stands and the Appellant’s appeal is dismissed.

A. Rhys-Davies

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

24 November 2025