Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000984

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/63013/2023
LP/06803/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 23rd of May 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE PINDER
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HOWARTH

Between

A.B.
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr. A. Slatter, Counsel instructed by Connaught Law Limited
For the Respondent: Mr. N. Wain, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 29 April 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, or his family members or any other persons, 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
Introduction
1. This is an appeal against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Juss promulgated on 24 December 2024, dismissing the appellant’s appeal against the respondent’s decision dated 23 November 2023, that the appellant was not entitled to asylum or humanitarian protection and did not qualify for a grant of permission to stay on the basis of Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (‘ECHR’) (right to respect for private and family life) (hereinafter, ‘Article 8’).
2. Permission to appeal was granted by First-tier Tribunal Judge Tozzi on 25 February 2024.
Anonymity Order
3. We have maintained the Anonymity Order in favour of the Appellant. We consider that, on 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.
Relevant Facts
4. It is accepted by the respondent that the appellant is a citizen of Albania, who hails from the ‘Paqe’ area, in the north of the country, and who is 56 years old. The following immigration history is also undisputed. That on 23 September 2014, the appellant travelled by ferry to Italy. He went by car from Italy to Belgium. He left Belgium by car and arrived on 15 October 2014 in the United Kingdom. It was not until 14 of March 2019 that he claimed asylum, which was refused by the respondent on 23 of November 2023.
5. The appellant fears that if he is returned to Albania, he will be killed by members of a particular Albanian family, who we will refer to in this judgment as the ‘M family’ for the purposes of the appellant’s anonymity. He claims that there is an extant blood feud between his family and the M family. The history of the blood feud, as explained by the appellant, can be summarised as follows. In August 2014, the appellant’s cousin, KB, was attacked by the M family and injured. The next day, and in retaliation, members of the appellant’s family attacked the M family. The appellant’s cousin, VB, killed a member of the M family by shooting him. This caused the M family to confirm a blood feud with the appellant's family; stating that they wanted two lives in return for one death and long-term injury to members of their family.
6. The appellant’s case is that he is entitled to protection under the Refugee Convention as a member of a family involved in an active blood feud, which constitutes a particular social group (‘PSG’) within the ambit of the Convention (EH blood feuds Albania CG [2012] UKUT (348) IAC [62](‘EH’)). The appellant also claims that he is entitled to humanitarian protection because if he is returned to Albania he will be at risk of physical harm, contrary to Articles 2 and 3 ECHR.
7. A significant feature of this appeal is that in the decision dated 23 November 2023, the respondent accepted the appellant’s account that his cousin, VB, had killed a member of the M family. The respondent does not accept; however, that this means that the appellant is at risk of persecution. According to the respondent, the circumstances described by the appellant do not bring him within the description of persons who, pursuant to the country guidance case, EH, would be at risk of persecution under the Refugee Convention. The respondent does not accept that there is an active blood feud because the events described by the appellant date back to 2014. Further, the respondent does not accept that the appellant’s individual circumstances, including that he has never personally been threatened by members of the M family, give rise to a specific risk to the appellant. Furthermore, the respondent’s position is that there would be sufficiency of protection for the appellant in Albania, and that it would also be safe for the appellant to internally relocate within the country. Consequently, the respondent does not accept that the appellant is at risk of persecution, nor in need of humanitarian protection.
8. The appellant’s Article 8 case is that he is settled in the United Kingdom, with his wife, who is also an Albanian citizen, and his child, who is 2 years-old and is a British citizen. The respondent does not accept that requiring the appellant to leave the United Kingdom would result in any violation of Article 8. The respondent considers that it would be in the best interests of the appellant’s child to be removed to Albania with their parents but there would not be any unjustifiably harsh consequences in removing the appellant and his family to Albania where they could continue their private and family life.
The First-tier Tribunal Decision
9. First-tier Tribunal Judge Juss (hereafter, “the judge”) heard the appeal on 29 July 2024, and dismissed it on 24 December 2025. The judge concluded that the appellant did not have a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason, did not face a risk of serious harm for the purposes of Humanitarian Protection, and that his removal to Albania would not result in a violation of his Article 8 rights to a private and family life.
10. The judge reached an overarching finding that the appellant’s evidence was “not coherent and plausible” [19], that he could not “accept that any such event of the kind described by the Appellant took place” and that he was not “satisfied that it is true that the Appellant family are at risk of an ‘honour’ killing from the M […] family as described” [20]. In summary, the judge did not accept that there was, or ever had been a blood feud, stating at [24] that, “I reject the Appellant’s story completely”.
11. Having rejected the appellant’s account that his family and the M family had been involved in a blood feud, the judge necessarily rejected that there was any subsisting active blood feud between the families [24].
12. The judge did not make any express finding about whether, had he found that there was any subsisting active blood feud, that there was sufficiency of protection within Albania, nor whether internal relocation would be a viable option in the circumstances described by the appellant.
13. In relation to Article 8 and referring to Agyarko v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 11, [2017] 1 WLR 823, the judge concluded that returning the appellant to Albania would not cause him to face any “unjustifiably harsh consequences” and that there were no “exceptional circumstances” which meant that it would be disproportionate to require the appellant to leave the United Kingdom. The judge did not consider, nor reach any findings about the Article 8 rights of either the appellant’s wife or child.
Grounds of Appeal
14. There are five grounds of appeal:
15. First, that the judge made a material error of fact. At [24] the judge recorded that the evidence of two of the appellant’s witnesses had “not been challenged” by the respondent only “because they were not called to give oral evidence”. However, it was pleaded that the judge was wrong about this because the witnesses had attended the hearing, had adopted their statements (recorded in the judgment [14-15]) and thus they had been available for cross-examination, which the respondent had chosen not to do. This error was material because the judge did not take the witnesses’ unchallenged evidence into account when assessing the credibility of the appellant’s account about the blood feud, and about the risk to him if he were returned to Albania.
16. Second, it was argued that the judge made a procedural error by rejecting parts of the appellant’s claim that were not in dispute between the parties. Namely, that the appellant’s cousin, VB had shot dead a member of the M family. It was procedurally unfair for the judge to reject, without warning, parts of the appellant’s case that had been accepted by the respondent.
17. Third, in reaching the finding that there was no active blood feud, the appellant submitted that the judge failed to consider relevant evidence that had been produced by the appellant and, or had failed to give adequate reasons for rejecting the appellant’s evidence.
18. Fourth, it was pleaded that the judge failed to apply the country guidance case, EH blood feuds Albania CG [2012] UKUT 348 (IAC), because he did not address the factors in paragraphs 5, 6 and 7 of the headnote and did not reach a finding about internal relocation (referred to in paragraph 3 of the headnote).
19. Fifth, it was also submitted that the judge made a material error of law in his analysis of Article 8. The judge only considered the Article 8 rights of the appellant and omitted to consider the impact that returning the appellant to Albania would have on the Article 8 rights of his wife, and his child whose best interests should also have been considered.
The appeal hearing before the Upper Tribunal
20. At the outset of the hearing, we heard from Mr Wain for the respondent, who conceded that the judge’s decision contained material errors of law. He agreed that, as a result, the judgment would need to be set aside, and the appeal remitted to the First-tier Tribunal (‘the FtT’) to be considered afresh by a different judge with no preserved findings of fact. Mr Wain specifically conceded the second to fifth grounds but maintained that the first ground of appeal was not made out. In respect of this ground, he agreed that it was unnecessary for us to consider any submissions because the material errors of law in the other grounds were sufficient to allow the appeal to the extent that this be remitted to the FtT.
21. We record our clear view that those concessions were properly made. In the circumstances, we did not need to hear from Mr Slatter. Mindful of the sensible and fair concessions made by the respondent, we also set out our reasons for allowing this appeal below.
Discussion
Ground 2
22. In circumstances where matters have been accepted by the respondent in a refusal letter, it is procedurally unfair for a judge to go behind the accepted facts, without first explaining to the parties that he or she does not agree with the concession, and providing the parties (especially the appellant) with an opportunity to address the judge (see Abdi & Ors v Entry Clerance Officer [2023] EWCA Civ 1455 [34] and AM (fair hearing) Sudan [2015] UKUT 00656 (IAC) [7].
23. In finding the entirety of the appellant’s account to be implausible, the judge went behind a significant concession made by the respondent in relation to the appellant’s account about the history of the blood feud. Namely that, in 2014 the appellant’s cousin, VB, had shot dead a member of the M family. As noted by Mr Wain, the respondent’s concession on this issue should have been the judge’s starting point for his consideration of the appeal. It was simply not open to the judge to reject the entirety of the appellant’s account as a fabrication, and to dismiss matters which the respondent had accepted without first addressing the respondent’s concession and hearing from the parties. Thus, in our view the judge’s error is plainly material because this issue concerns the core of the appellant’s account.
Ground 3
24. Ground 3 is that in reaching his finding that there was no active blood feud, the judge failed to consider relevant evidence and, or, failed to give adequate reasons for rejecting the appellant’s evidence. The grounds of appeal refer to several examples where the judge either did not consider evidence, or did not give reasons for dismissing the appellant’s evidence. Given that Mr Wain conceded ground 3, it is unnecessary to address each of the examples in this judgment but we do agree that the judge did not consider relevant evidence (such as the witness statement from his father-in-law) and did not give adequate reasons for dismissing the appellant’s evidence (such as explaining why he reached the view that the delay in claiming asylum damaged the appellant’s credibility when the respondent had taken the position that it did not damage the core aspects of the appellant’s claim). However, more fundamentally, the judge’s error in relation to ground 2 meant that, having concluded that none of what the appellant had said was ‘true’, the judge simply did not examine the appellant’s evidence, let alone provide reasons for rejecting the appellant’s case on the matters which required determination under the country guidance case (EH) This brings us to the next ground of appeal.
Ground 4
25. Ground four relates to the judge’s failure to apply the country guidance case, EH. EH sets out those matters which must be addressed when considering an appeal in relation to the Refugee Convention and an active blood feud in Albania. The judge does not refer to the country guidance case in his judgment and we cannot see that the judge has applied the matters set out in the headnote to EH to the facts of the appellant’s case. The judge may have concluded that because he had found that there had never been a blood feud [24], he did not need to consider EH. If that was that case, then the material error of law identified in relation to Ground 2 has also led to a material error in relation to Ground 4. Whatever the rationale, we have no hesitation in finding that the judge materially erred in failing to consider the matters set out in EH. Unless there is a good reason, explicitly stated, for not doing so, a failure to follow a country guidance case will amount to an error of law because a material consideration has been ignored, or legally inadequate reasons have been given (R (Iran) et al v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] EWCA Civ 982 [27]).
Ground 5
26. The judge also made a material error of law in relation to his consideration of Article 8 ECHR. The judge failed to give any consideration at all to the Article 8 rights of the appellant’s wife and his child. This was addressed in the respondent’s decision letter and the respondent’s review. It is an obvious error because it was incumbent on the judge to consider not only the impact of the appellant’s removal on his own Article 8 rights, but also those of his wife and child. In so doing, the judge was also required to consider the ‘best interests’ of the appellant’s child as a ‘primary consideration’ in his analysis (ZH (Tanzania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] UKSC 4, [2011] 2 All ER 783, [2001] 2 WLR 148, per Baroness Hales, [29-33]) but he did not do so. The judge has therefore made a material error of law because he has not considered matters that he was bound to consider in assessing Article 8. This too was expressly agreed to by Mr Wain.
Ground 1
27. As we have recorded above, Mr Wain did not make any concession in respect of this ground. We did not hear submissions from the parties on this ground. This is because both parties and we were satisfied that there were material errors of law in relation the other grounds, which meant that the appeal should be allowed. It is not necessary therefore for us to determine the issue that the appellant has raised under ground 1. We note, however, that the judge appears to have erroneously recorded that two of the appellant’s witnesses had not been called to give evidence. This is surprising since the judge himself recorded in the judgment that the witnesses had adopted their statements at the hearing [14-15] and were not asked any further questions. It would appear therefore that the witnesses in question had been tendered for cross-examination by the respondent at the hearing. In those circumstances, it would appear to us that the judge was not entitled to dismiss the appellant’s submission at [24].

Remaking
28. We have considered whether to retain the matter for remaking in the Upper Tribunal, in line with the general principle set out in statement 7 of the Senior President’s Practice Statement and further considered in AEB v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 1512 and Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 00046 (IAC). We are satisfied that it is appropriate to remit the appeal to the FtT because substantial findings of fact will need to be made.

Notice of Decision
1. The First-tier Tribunal decision involved the making of errors of law. Accordingly, the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 24 December 2024 is set aside.
2. The decision will be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard by a different judge. No findings of fact are preserved.

Kathryn Howarth

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

20 May 2025