Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal UI-2025-000574
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: PA-57539-2023
LP/06790/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 17th of October 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE GREER

Between

CT
(anonymity direction MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr J. Dingley, Counsel
For the Respondent: Mr A. Tan, a Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Manchester Civil Justice Centre on 22 September 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The Appellant is a 21-year-old citizen of Ethiopia of Oromo ethnicity and Orthodox Christian religion. He appeals with permission the decision of the First tier Tribunal dismissing his Protection and Human Rights Appeals promulgated on 24th October 2025.
2. It is the Appellant’s case that his family was associated with the OLF. The Appellant feared that he would be forcibly recruited to a government aligned paramilitary militia to fight in the civil war. He fled the country fearing that he would be at risk of serious harm.
3. The Respondent accepted that the Appellant’s family did have some involvement with the OLF, but not to the extent that the Appellant described. The Respondent did not accept that the Appellant would be at risk of forced recruitment by a militia. The First Tier Tribunal dismissed the Appellant’s Appeal.
4. The Appellant appealed against that decision and was granted permission to appeal on limited grounds. The decision granting permission to appeal said as follows:
Grounds 2 & 3: I accept, as contended in the grounds of appeal, that an element of the Appellant’s case was that he feared being forcibly recruited in Ethiopia. That issue was explicitly dealt with in the refusal decision being appealed, was addressed in the Appellant’s appeal witness statement and in the Appellant’s skeleton argument.
This part of the Appellant’s case is given very brief consideration in the Decision: see paragraph 79. On the face of it, there is no determination by the Judge of the credibility of the Appellant’s evidence, no consideration of the weight to be attached to Dr Allo’s evidence and no engagement with the Appellant’s submissions on this issue.
Whilst, on closer review of the case, it might be decided that at paragraph 79 the Judge did all they had to do to deal with the argument advanced, I consider, based on the brief analysis that appears at paragraph 79 that it is at least arguable that the Judge failed to give adequate consideration to and/or erred in their analysis of the forced recruitment issue.
5. On 21st January 2025 the Respondent filed a response in accordance with Tribunal Procedure Rule 24. That response indicated that the Respondent accepted that the First Tier Tribunal’s decision was infected with material legal error, and invited the Upper Tribunal to remake the decision. However, at the hearing before me, Mr Tan withdrew that concession. With his customary fairness and professionalism, Mr Dingley indicated that he did not oppose Mr Tan taking this course because he was prepared to argue the case in any event.
Grounds of Appeal: Discussion and Findings
6. In reality, Grounds 2 and 3 are variations on a single ground of appeal and it is appropriate to deal with them together. For the reasons that follow, I find that those grounds are made out.
7. On behalf of the Appellant, Mr Dingley relied upon Ms Khan’s Grounds of Appeal and expanded upon them in his carefully argued submissions. He argued that although the risk facing the Appellant was not pleaded as a separate issue in the Appeal Skeleton Argument, it nonetheless formed a distinct limb of the Appellant’s case which stood independently of the Appellant’s risk from the state due to his imputed political opinion and religion. Plainly, he argued, the Respondent viewed it as such because this is how it was dealt with by the Respondent in the decision under appeal (Paragraph 5, composite bundle, page 445). It was incumbent upon the Tribunal to determine the risk of forced recruitment by paramilitary militias aligned with the government, on the facts of the case as the Tribunal found them to be, whatever the Tribunal concluded in respect of the rest of the Appellant’s claim. The failure to confront this issue directly is a material legal error.
8. On behalf of the Respondent, Mr Tan argued that it was tolerably clear from a fair reading of the First Tier Tribunal’s determination what the Judge thought of this aspect of the Appellant’s claim. He accepted that the Judge did not set out a list of controversial issues on the face of the decision and the Judge did not explicitly address the risk that the Appellant might face of forced recruitment to a militia. He reminded me that the determination must be read as a whole. He referred me to Paragraph 79 of the determination which, he said, reached a clear finding on the Appellant’s claim to fear conscription. Although this did not directly address whether or not the Appellant would, in fact, be forced into military service, it did not need to. This is because the decision explains why, by reference to settled authority, the Appellant’s refusal to undertake military service could not make out a claim to international protection. This followed a number of findings of fact relating to the Appellant’s family and their involvement with the OLF and entitled the Appellant to understand why he had lost.
9. In reply, Mr Dingley argued that Paragraph 79 cannot be read in the manner that Mr Tan suggests. This is because the conclusions are framed in terms of conscription for military service by the state in accordance with the law. This is not what the Appellant describes. The Appellant describes being targeted for forced recruitment to a paramilitary group due to his age, race and family background. He said that this form of recruitment was in breach of Ethiopian law, which does not mandate compulsory military service. In Mr Dingley’s submission, Paragraph 79 only served to demonstrate that the judge had not addressed the issue in dispute.
10. I have carefully analysed Paragraph 79 of the determination, and put that paragraph in its proper context. Having done so, I find myself agreeing with Mr Dingley. The Appellant’s case is not that he is opposed to military service, or conscription of the sort to which the House of Lords turned its mind in Sepet & Anor, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] UKHL 15. The Appellant fears being singled out for forced recruitment, in breach of Ethiopian law. This much is clear from what he said at Paragraphs 54 to 75 of his Witness Statement (Composite Bundle, Page 51), and what the Respondent understood the Appellant’s case to be (Composite Bundle, Page 445). The expert evidence before the First Tier Tribunal established that Ethiopia’s laws do not mandate compulsory military service (Paragraph 54, Composite Bundle, Page 293) and that, in the context of the civil war, the state had forcibly recruited children, “to fight against their own communities,” (Paragraph 56, Composite Bundle, Page 295).
11. This being the case, the First Tier Tribunal’s reliance on Sepet was misplaced. That case concerned lawful conscription and conscientious objection, not the unlawful and targeted recruitment of minors by state-aligned militias. In my judgment, it was inadequate for the First Tier Tribunal to leave unresolved the question of whether the Appellant would, as he claimed, be forcibly recruited to a government-aligned militia. That issue formed a distinct limb of the Appellant’s case and was plainly in dispute. The Tribunal’s failure to confront it directly amounts to a material error of law. The determination cannot stand.
Disposal
12. I am conscious of the Court of Appeal's decision in AEB v SSHD [2022] EWCA Civ 1512, Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 46 (IAC) and 7.2 of the Senior President's Practice Statements. Sub-paragraph (a) deals with where the effect of the error has been to deprive a party before the Tribunal of a fair hearing or other opportunity for that party's case to be put to and considered by the FtT, whereas sub-paragraph (b) directs us to consider whether we are satisfied that the nature or extent of any judicial fact finding which is necessary in order for the decision in the appeal to be re-made is such that, having regard to the overriding objective in rule 2, it is appropriate to remit the case to the First-tier Tribunal.
13. The parties agreed before me that if I were to find that Grounds 2 and 3 were made out, none of the First Tier Tribunal’s findings could stand. This is because the Tribunal’s findings in respect of the risk facing the Appellant from the militia, or lack of them, affected all of the First Tier Tribunal’s findings of fact. The parties agreed that this meant that the matter would have to be returned to the First Tier Tribunal to determine the Appeal afresh. I agree.
Notice of Decision
1. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of a material error on a point of law. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside.
2. The matter is to be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be determined de novo by a judge other than Judge of the First Tier Tribunal McClure.

Signed:

J. GREER

Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Greer

Dated 28th September 2025