Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000601
First-tier Tribunal No: HU/53172/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 11th of July 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’BRIEN
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE ATHWAL

Between

SAHAR ALHASSAN
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellants: Ms Sepulveda, Fountain Solicitors
For the Respondent: No representative in attendance

Heard at Birmingham Civil Justice Centre on 2 June 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The Appellant appeals the decision of the First-tier Tribunal. On 1 December 2024, the First-tier Tribunal Judge (“the Judge”) dismissed the Appellant’s appeal against the Respondent’s decision of 10 February 2023, in which the Respondent refused the Appellant’s application for entry clearance under the Family Reunion provisions of the Immigration Rules.
Factual Background
2. The Appellant is a Syrian national; she is married to the Sponsor, who has been granted refugee status in the United Kingdom (“UK”). The background to the appeal is set out in the composite hearing appeal bundle. In summary, the Appellant claimed that she and the Sponsor married in March 2020 in Syria and resided together until the Sponsor fled Syria in May 2020. In August 2020 he claimed asylum in the UK. The Appellant also left Syria and is currently residing in a refugee camp in Lebanon.
The Decision of the First-tier Tribunal
3. The Judge heard the appeal on 20 November 2024 and made the following findings;
i. Paragraph 9.7.2 of Part 9 of the Immigration Rules was applicable. As part of her application, the Appellant submitted photographs showing the Appellant and Sponsor together before the application was made on 24 November 2021. The photographs were counterfeit and submitted with the Appellant’s knowledge. [10-12]
ii. The requirements of paragraph 352A(ii) and (iii) of the Immigration Rules were not met. The Appellant’s marriage to the Sponsor did not pre-date the Sponsor’s flight to the UK. (The decision refers to the Appellant but that is clearly a typographical error: the Judge refers to the Appellant as “he”.) The Appellant and the Sponsor’s account of the history of their relationship was found not to be credible for the following reasons [13-15]:
a. The Sponsor in his screening interview stated his wife was called Rawan Ahmed, she was born in 2001, and that they were married in 2019. The Sponsor’s explanation for providing the details of a different person and a different date of marriage were rejected as lacking in credibility.
b. There was a considerable delay between the date of marriage and its registration. It was registered on 27 October 2001, after the Sponsor fled Syria. The Sponsor failed to provide a credible explanation for the delay.
c. The Appellant and Sponsor submitted counterfeit photographs in an attempt to deceive the Respondent.
iii. Paragraph 352A(v) was met. The Appellant and Sponsor married after the Sponsor left Syria and are now in a relationship. The Sponsor travelled to meet the Appellant in 2023 and 2024. The Appellant sadly suffered a miscarriage. They had a genuine and subsisting relationship and intended to reside in the UK. [16]
iv. It was more likely that the Appellant and Sponsor married on or near 27 October 2001 and that the marriage was likely by proxy. They did not meet in person until 2023 when the Sponsor visited the Appellant. [18]
v. The decision to refuse entry clearance was proportionate. The Appellant could not meet the Immigration Rules for the reasons provided. Weight was given to the Respondent’s need for effective immigration control. The Appellant relied on the dire humanitarian situation in the camp in Lebanon. The circumstances were difficult but there was insufficient evidence to establish that the situation was so poor for the Appellant that she need not meet the Immigration Rules. [19]
Issues on appeal to the Upper Tribunal
4. The Appellant sought permission to appeal on the following grounds:
i. The Judge failed to reach findings on material matters. In assessing proportionality, she failed to take into account matters other than the humanitarian situation in Lebanon. It was submitted that other matters ought also to have been taken into account: that the Appellant’s situation in Lebanon was precarious; that she feared deportation to Syria, and that the only country in which the Appellant and Sponsor could reside together was the UK. Furthermore, the Judge failed to take into account the affect the dismissal would have on the Appellant’s family life with the Sponsor and her wish to reside permanently with him and start a family. As a result, the proportionality assessment was flawed.
ii. The Judge failed to provide adequate reasons for why the Appellant’s evidence was insufficient to establish that the situation in “Libya” was so poor that she need not meet the Immigration Rules. We are satisfied that this is a typographical error and that the reference should be to Lebanon, not Libya.
5. Permission to appeal was granted, the decision does not specify whether it was on a particular ground or both. The decision records that it was arguable that the Judge had failed to consider;
i. How the Appellant and Sponsor’s family life could continue if the Respondent’s decision was maintained.
ii. That they were at the beginning of their relationship, had attempted to start a family that ended in a miscarriage, and there was no other safe country in which they could pursue their family life as a married couple.
iii. The protection offered by article 8 for the potential for family life to develop further which was of particular relevance when considering the proportionality of an interference with their family life.
The Hearing
6. Prior to the hearing, the Respondent informed the Tribunal that the Senior Home Office Presenting Officer would not be in attendance due to unforeseen personal circumstances, and applied for an adjournment.
7. Ms Sepulveda opposed the application. She submitted that the Respondent had not served a Rule 24 response. The Respondent had an opportunity to clarify her position but had chosen not to do so. An adjournment would be unfair to the Appellant and Sponsor who had waited several years for the application and subsequent appeal to be determined. Furthermore, the Appellant was privately paying in this matter.
8. We considered Rule 2 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008 and whether the Respondent would be deprived of a fair hearing. We balanced that against the complexity of the issues before us, the Respondent’s failure to serve a Rule 24 response, and the need to avoid delay so far as is compatible with the proper consideration of the issues. We refused the adjournment application for the reasons put forward by Ms Sepulveda.
9. We proceeded on the basis that permission was granted on both grounds of appeal.
10. We heard Ms Sepulveda’s submissions. She argued that the Judge had erred in her consideration of “exceptional circumstances” and in her proportionality assessment. The Judge had mistakenly considered the appeal on humanitarian protection grounds and not pursuant to article 8. When questioned further, Ms Sepulveda conceded that this was not an arguable ground.
11. Ms Sepulveda proceeded to rely on [11] of the grounds of appeal, as summarised above at [4]. She repeated that argument and clarified that the second ground of appeal was on the basis that the Judge had failed to provide adequate reasons for why the situation in the Lebanese refugee camp did not amount to exceptional circumstances.
Discussion
12. We are satisfied that the Judge made findings on the material matters before her, and provided adequate reasons for her findings. These are our reasons.
Failure to consider the Appellant’s precarious situation and fear of deportation
13. We have reminded ourselves of the summary of principles set out in Volpi & Anor v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464, to be adopted when it is an appeal on facts. An appeal court is bound, unless there is compelling reason to the contrary, to assume that the trial judge has taken the whole of the evidence into consideration. The mere fact that a judge does not mention a specific piece of evidence does not mean that they overlooked it. Furthermore, reasons for judgment will always be capable of having been better expressed. An appeal court should not subject a judgment to narrow textual analysis. Nor should it be picked over or construed as though it was a piece of legislation or a contract.
14. It is clear that the Judge was aware of the fact that the Appellant is living in a refugee camp in Lebanon. It is referred to at [19] of her decision. The issue is whether she considered whether the Appellant’s situation in Lebanon was precarious and that she feared deportation to Syria.
15. We have considered the evidence that was before the Judge. In her witness statement of 27 November 2023, the Appellant refers to the poor living conditions within the camp but does not give evidence about concerns arising from her precarious status or her fear of deportation. The Sponsor in his statement of 13 November 2024 makes no reference to this. It records that the Appellant lives in inhumane conditions and is at risk from indiscriminate violence. He states that he is unable to live in Lebanon because he has no legal right to do so, and because his home and employment is in the UK. He does not wish to live there because of the indiscriminate violence. He states that he cannot afford to visit his wife regularly. At [9] he states:
“… my wife is all alone in Lebanon. My wife’s family moved back to Syria in fear of being seriously harmed or killed in the conflict, attributed to the war between Israel and Hezbollah, but my wife stayed, because if her appeal is granted, she will not be able to travel back from Syria to Lebanon to collect her visa, due to the heavy border restrictions and security, that have increased with the current conflict.”
16. We are satisfied that evidence from the Sponsor and the Appellant pertaining to the Appellant’s precarious situation and risk of deportation was not before the Judge. She was invited to consider the inhumane living conditions within the camp and the indiscriminate violence.
The Appellant’s Family Life with the Sponsor
17. The Appellant argues that the Judge failed to take into account the affect of the dismissal on the Appellant’s family life with the Sponsor and that the UK was the only country in which that family life could continue.
18. In regards to the family life it was submitted that the Judge failed to consider that the Appellant and the Sponsor wished to reside together permanently and have children. We are satisfied that the Judge took these factors into consideration. At [16] she found that their relationship was genuine and subsisting and accepted that the Appellant miscarried her child with the Sponsor. These findings demonstrate that the Judge took into account the desire to live together as a family and have children.
19. Even if it was found that the Judge failed to consider these specific issues, we are not satisfied that it is material. It is a well known principle, established in Abdulaziz, Cabales and Balkandali v United Kingdom (1985) 7 EHRR 471, that the refusal to admit the foreign spouse of a person settled here was not a breach of the article 8 right to respect for family life and there was no general obligation to respect a married couple's choice of country to live in. The fact that they wish to live together permanently and have children of itself carries little weight when they chose to marry in full knowledge of the fact that the Appellant may not be granted entry clearance to the UK.
20. We turn to consider whether the Judge considered the effect of the dismissal on the Appellant and the Sponsor. Ms Sepulveda clarified that the Appellant’s current living conditions were causing stress and anxiety to the Appellant and the Sponsor, and that their separation prevented them from adequately supporting one another. We have considered the witness evidence, as summarised above. This issue is not addressed in the Appellant’s statement. There is no medical evidence to support their claim of ill-health. The Sponsor’s statement records that he feared for her safety in Lebanon but does not refer to either he or the Appellant suffering from stress and anxiety and the impact of that. We are not satisfied that evidence of this adverse impact on the Appellant and Sponsor was before the Judge.
21. We now move to consider the next argument, that the Judge failed to make a finding on whether the UK was the only country where the Appellant and Sponsor could safely continue their family life. We reject this argument, at [19] the Judge states “I do appreciate that circumstances may be difficult, but there is insufficient evidence before me of the situation being so poor that the Appellant need not meet the Immigration Rules in order to come to the UK.” We are satisfied that this demonstrates that the Judge considered the issue of whether the current status quo, and therefore the couple’s family life, could continue.
22. The final ground raised by Ms Sepulveda is that the Judge in her proportionality assessment failed to consider all of the material factors. We acknowledge the brevity of the proportionality assessment, but we are satisfied that it is adequate. The Judge at [19] states, “In respect of proportionality of the decision, I turn to 117B Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. The Appellant cannot meet the Immigration Rules at this stage as outlined above.” This demonstrates that the Judge, in conducting the proportionality assessment, took into consideration all of the matters considered under the Immigration Rules, not only their desire to live together and attempt(s) to have a child, but also including the use of counterfeit documents, and the fact that the Appellant and Sponsor lied about when they married in order to meet paragraph 352A. These latter factors attach significant weight to the public interest. At [19-20] she took into consideration the humanitarian situation in the camp and the genuine relationship between the Appellant and Sponsor. We are therefore satisfied that the Judge took into account all the material factors that were before her.
Ground 2- Adequate reasons on the situation in the refugee camp
23. Ms Sepulveda submitted that the Judge failed to provide adequate reasons for why she did not accept the country information provided by the Appellant, which established “the dire humanitarian situation” in Lebanon. We were referred to a news article from Middle East Monitor dated 21 June 2024 titled, “The world has forgotten Syrian refugees in Lebanon.” Ms Sepulveda submitted that the article established that the conditions for refugees were worsening because of growing difficulty in finding work, the soaring cost of medical bills, and spiralling food prices. She confirmed that the other articles were not relevant.
24. We are not persuaded that the Judge was obliged to deal expressly with this article, if indeed it had been drawn to her attention. We are not satisfied that the article could have materially impacted the outcome of the appeal. The article referred to provides a general synopsis of the situation. It focuses on the financial difficulties faced by refugees but it is not disputed that the Sponsor financially supports the Appellant. This article adds little weight to the account provided by the Sponsor and the Appellant of the situation within the camp.
25. Furthermore, neither the Appellant nor the Sponsor provided specific details of the inhumane situation the Appellant was residing in. In the circumstances the Judge entitled to find that there was insufficient evidence of the situation in camp being so poor as to amount to exceptional circumstances.
26. It follows that the Appellant has failed to establish that the Judge’s decision is infected by an error on a point of law.
Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal contains no material error of law and accordingly stands.

H.Athwal

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

8 July 2025