Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-001087

First-tier PA/65385/2023
LP/06253/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 23 September 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RIMINGTON

Between

BK
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr A Joseph instructed by Sriharans Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms S Rushforth, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre on 20 August 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant is granted anonymity owing to the assertion of a protection claim.

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

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant appeals against the decision of FtT Judge Khan (the judge) promulgated on the 19th of January 2025 following a hearing on the 3rd January 2025. The Secretary of State’s refusal of the protection and human rights claim was made on 23rd November 2023.
2. The appellant is a national of Namibia and entered the United Kingdom and claimed asylum based on his membership of a particular social group owing to a claimed forced marriage. Alternatively, he maintains that he is entitled to humanitarian protection should a convention reason not be found. The appellant’s uncle he states, had threatened him for a number of years in order to force him to marry the uncle’s wife forcing her to stay within the family upon the uncle’s death. The threats were said to be verbal including threat of a witch doctor to harm the appellant and the uncle did burn the appellant with a hot iron on one occasion.
The grounds of appeal
3. The appellant relies on Mibanga [2005] EWCA Civ 367 particularly at paragraphs 24-25 which confirmed that a fact finder must not reach his conclusion before surveying all the evidence relevant thereto.
4. As confirmed in SM (section 8: Judge’s process) Iran [2005] UKAIT 00116, the task of the fact finder is to look at all the evidence in the round and to try to grasp it as a whole and to see how it fits together and whether it is sufficient to discharge the burden of proof. It is for the fact finder to decide which are the important and which are the less important features of the evidence and to reach a view on the whole of the evidence.
5. At paragraphs 23 and 24 of her decision the judge stated in relation to the “traditional authority letter” as follows:
23.The Appellant has submitted a letter from the Traditional Authority. The letter refers to the Appellant’s complaint to the Authority about his uncle’s attempts to force the marriage.
24. In view of my finding above, wherein I do not accept that the Appellant’s uncle threatened the Appellant as claimed to force the marriage to his wife, I therefore attach limited weight to the letter from the Traditional Authority. Instead, I find that it is a self-serving letter.
6. The judge proceeded to say at paragraph 29 that she had assessed “the evidence as a whole and in the round” however it was submitted that the aforementioned paragraphs at 23 and 24 contradicted this statement.
7. The judge elected to determine the credibility of the appellant’s claim prior to assessing the weight of the traditional authority letter and therefore concluded that the letter had limited weight. The evidence should have been considered in the round and the traditional authority letter was of direct relevance to the core factual matrix and was crucial when assessing the appellants credibility as a whole. This was a significant material error of law.
The hearing.
8. At the hearing before me Mr Joseph submitted that there was essentially one ground and that was that the judge had put the cart before the horse. In his screening at interview [at PDF 128] question 6.3 the appellant stated that he had reported the matter to the traditional authorities and although there had been no specification of the traditional authority letter, I was directed to the appellant’s asylum interview at pdf 147 of the composite bundle. Mr Joseph accepted that Tanveer Ahmed [2002] UKIAT 00439 was relevant and that the claimant had to show that the document could be relied upon, but the judge had not looked at all the evidence in the round and made adverse findings prior to assessing the letter. The question was whether the error was material. It was noted that the judge had given other reasons to make adverse credibility findings not related to the letter not least that the appellant had remained in Namibia for three years.
9. Ms Rushforth relied on the rule 24 response unsubmitted that the judge’s findings were open to her and consistent with Tanveer Ahmed. She accepted the wording at [24] was clumsy and could have been better phrased but there was no material error and noted that other adverse credibility findings had not been challenged and thus it was submitted there was no material error of law.
Conclusions
10. I am not persuaded that the judge failed to assess the evidence in the round. At [7] the judge specifically stated that she had considered “all of the documentary evidence to together with the appellant’s evidence and the respondent’s bundle” and she specifically stated that she did not rehearse all the documentary evidence in detail but referenced such evidence as was relevant to her decision. That is a clear indication that the judge has indeed looked at the evidence in the round.
11. The judge at [15] referenced the fundamental difficulties with the appellant’s account which were found to be inconsistent incoherent or so implausible as capable of belief. The judge had set out that it was for the appellant to discharge the burden of proof albeit it was on a lower standard of “a reasonable degree of likelihood” [13].
12. The difficulty for the appellant was that the judge found that if the appellant was in genuine fear of his uncle he would not have continued to use his phone number in Germany [18], as his uncle could continue to contact him. The judge when assessing the core part of the appellant’s claim at [21], also noted it was the appellant's account that from 2018 to 2021 his uncle repeatedly threatened him and tried to force him to marry his wife. The judge reasoned, sustainably in my view, the account to be inconsistent, incoherent and implausible because if the appellant's uncle was eager to force the marriage, he simply did not carry out his threats over the three-year period. The judge did not accept that despite using verbal threats physical threats and the threat of a witch doctor, the uncle did not succeed in forcing the marriage between the appellant and the uncle’s wife.
13. It was open to the judge to find it implausible “that the appellant was able to avoid marrying his uncle’s wife for a period of three years despite the continued threats and as he continued to live in the same area as his uncle for the majority of that period.”
14. It was in the context of that account that the judge went on to consider the Traditional Authority letter on which limited weight was placed at [23]-[24]. The judge merely states
‘...The letter refers to the appellant’s complaint to the Authority about his uncle’s attempts to force the marriage’
and adds at [24].
‘In view of my finding above, wherein I do not accept that the appellants uncle threatened the appellant as claimed to force the marriage to his wife, I therefore attached limited weight to the letter from the Traditional authority. Instead, I find that it is a self-serving letter’.
15. This letter was not merely dismissed because it was self-serving but in the context of the evidence overall and its rejection was, in my view, in accordance with Tanveer Ahmed at [38] as to the reliability of documents which has this to say:
‘1. In asylum and human rights cases it is for an individual claimant to show that a document on which he seeks to rely can be relied on.
2. The decision maker should consider whether a document is one on which reliance should properly be placed after looking at all the evidence in the round.
3. Only very rarely will there be the need to make an allegation of forgery, or evidence strong enough to support it. The allegation should not be made without such evidence. Failure to establish the allegation on the balance of probabilities to the higher civil standard does not show that a document is reliable. The decision maker still needs to apply principles 1 and 2’.
16. Simply the judge did not find the document reliable having looked at the evidence in the round.
17. The question was further, whether any error in relation to the letter, even if made out, was material. Mr Joseph accepted that the Traditional Authority letter was not even dated. It is difficult to conclude that the document would have had, in this event, any weight at all. Quite apart from the fact that the letter is undated and thus does not refer to the period in question, it is also wholly unclear and lacking in detail when simply stating ‘This letter refers to a matter between yourself and Traditional Councillor OT your uncle of a forced marriage with his matrimonial wife’. It goes on to state that the ‘squabbles’ were in fact in the High Court. (Nothing from the High Court was produced in evidence).
18. I was also referred to the screening interview at 6.3 but that did not specify an authority letter, and I was also referred by Mr Joseph to the appellant’s answer in the asylum interview, at q41 (pdf 147 of the bundle) on contact with the traditional authorities and which answer was even less clear and consistent than the traditional letter and actually states
‘Yes. I did report this to the traditional authority, they haven’t looked and they tired (sic) to ask my uncle why did you do this to me, yeah apparently they do ask and have to put this in black and white, they have to do this in papers to get an answer. Unfortunately they didn’t’ do that because we lost our primary chief as I said before and until now we wont have a chief in the head community and I don’t know if I have access to anyone to help me with that…we don’t have the chief who can put the signature on that to sort out what happened here. ‘
19. Even if these aspects of the evidence were not specifically referred to by the judge, I find that they were considered and, in any event, would carry no weight and thus could not generate a material error of law.
20. I repeat, it was noted that the judge had given other reasons to make adverse credibility findings not related to the letter not least that the appellant had remained in Namibia for three years. The judge found further elements of the appellant’s claim, unconnected to the letter, incoherent not least when he stated he could not relocate within Namibia long term because he had to return to care for his family yet owing to the threat of witchcraft, he then left the country entirely leaving his mother girlfriend and daughters behind [26].
21. The overall credibility conclusion was not made until [29] and that leads me to conclude that all the evidence was indeed looked at in the round.
22. S v the Secretary of State [2006] EWCA Civ 1153 held at [32] as follows:
“32. I would also refer to the AIT determination of 25 November 2005 in HH Medical Evidence Effective Mibanga Ethiopia [2005] UKAIT 00164. The tribunal there said:
‘20. In the present case it is manifest that the immigration judge has arrived at his conclusions as to credibility by looking at the evidence in the round. At paragraph 16 of the determination he reminded himself that ‘I must look at the case in the round in light of all the relevant circumstances’. At paragraph 20 the immigration judge confirmed that he had 'considered the appellant's evidence in the round together with the background evidence and her interview record'. Plainly the medical report was part of the appellant's evidence.
21. The tribunal considers that there is a danger of Mibanga being misunderstood. Judgments in that case are not intended to place judicial fact finders in a form of forensic straightjacket. In particular the Court of Appeal is not to be regarded as laying down any rule of law as to the order in which judicial fact finders are to approach the evidential materials before them. To take Wilson J's cake analogy, all its ingredients cannot be thrown together into the bowl simultaneously. One has to start somewhere. There is nothing illogical about the process by which the immigration judge in the present case chose to approach his analytical task.’
I would approve those comments and emphasise how close the present case is to the circumstances of HH as distinct from those of Mibanga.”
23. It is evident that the judge did consider the relevant evidence in the round and gave adequate reasoning on the evidence as presented. I find no material error of law in the decision.

Notice of Decision
The decision of the FtT will stand and the appellant’s appeal remains dismissed.

Helen Rimington

Judge of the Upper Tribunal Rimington
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

4th September 2025