Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-001249
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/65704/2023
LP/08181/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 29th of April 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’CALLAGHAN
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE COLE

Between

TA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr J Dingley, Counsel instructed by AB Legal Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms C Newton, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Manchester Civil Justice Centre on 20 April 2026

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, 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 is a citizen of Iraq. He arrived in the UK on 2 November 2021 and claimed asylum. His protection claim was refused, and he appealed to the First-tier Tribunal. His appeal was dismissed in a decision promulgated 19 October 2024. The appellant now appeals to the Upper Tribunal.
Anonymity Order
2. The First-tier Tribunal issued an anonymity order. We consider that at the present time the appellant’s private life rights protected by article 8 ECHR outweighs the public interest in knowing his identity in these proceedings, as protected by article 10 ECHR, consequent to him seeking international protection. In these circumstances, we conclude that the anonymity order should properly continue.
3. The order is detailed above.
Background
4. The appellant is an Iraqi citizen of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born in 1993 in Sulaymaniyah. He claims to have had a relationship with a woman who was a customer at his shop. Their relationship became intimate and the woman fell pregnant. The appellant asked for permission to marry the woman, but this was refused by her family. The woman’s family came from a large, powerful tribe and her brother was a captain in the Peshmerga. The appellant discovered that the woman had been shot and killed by her brother. The appellant fled Iraq. He has had threats on Facebook, and he understands that the police and the woman’s family are searching for him. The Appellant claims that his CSID was taken by the agent on his journey to the UK.
5. The respondent refused the protection claim on the basis that it was not accepted that the appellant had given a credible account of events in Iraq.
6. The appellant appealed to the First-tier Tribunal. The appeal was heard by Judge Farrelly on 17 October 2024.
7. The Judge did not find the appellant’s account of events in Iraq to be credible. He found that the appellant could obtain the necessary identity documentation. The appellant’s appeal was dismissed.
8. The appellant submitted grounds of challenge. By decision dated 17 March 2025 Judge J M Dixon granted permission on the following terms:
“I consider there to be an arguable error of law in the decision for the reasons given in the grounds of appeal. The grant of appeal is in relation to the documentation issue though that appears to be dependent on how the protection issue is resolved.”
9. Thus, the matter came before us to determine whether Judge Farrelly’s decision involved the making of an error on a point of law.
The Hearing
10. Mr Dingley relied upon the grounds of appeal and expanded on them. He submitted that the Judge had failed to provide adequate reasons for placing limited weight on the corroborative evidence. The Judge was factually wrong regarding certain observations regarding the translations.
11. Ms Newton relied upon the Rule 24 response and submitted that there was no material error of law in the Judge’s decision. She submitted that there was no evidence that the internet article was reliable. Ms Newton acknowledged the factual error made by the Judge but submitted that sufficient reasons had been provided for rejecting the appellant’s claim.
12. Ms Newton made several submissions regarding the documents that she readily accepted were not matters relevant to the error of law consideration but would be relevant to any remaking of the decision.
13. After hearing the submissions, we indicated that the Judge’s decision contained material errors of law and would be set aside. The appeal would be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal. We informed that parties that our written reasons would follow in due course.
Discussion and Analysis
14. When considering whether the Judge made a material error in law in dismissing the appellant’s appeal, we have remined ourselves of the following principles.
15. It is not permissible for the Upper Tribunal to simply disagree with the result or the way in which it was reached (see paragraph 36 of South Bucks County Council v Porter [2004] UKHL 33).
16. We take note of the narrow circumstances in which an appellate Tribunal may interfere with findings of fact and credibility by the fact-finding Tribunal. In Volpi v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464, the Court of Appeal confirmed that unless the First-tier Judge's decision is “rationally insupportable”, the Upper Tribunal should not interfere with findings of fact by the First-tier Judge who had seen and heard the oral evidence.
17. We also remind ourselves that the Upper Tribunal is required to exercise judicial restraint in its oversight of the First-tier Tribunal's reasoning, as detailed by the Court of Appeal in paragraph 26 of Ullah v SSHD [2024] EWCA Civ 201.
18. The grounds of challenge submitted by the appellant demonstrate clear errors of law made by the Judge in his decision. The way the Judge dealt with the documentary evidence is the key area in which the Judge erred.
19. The Judge in paragraph 17 made some unsubstantiated observations regarding the online news article from “Sharpress” but still concluded that the report “supports the appellant’s claim.”
20. The Judge in paragraph 18 made an accepted factual error regarding the translation of the Facebook threat. The Judge then finds that he has “no way of knowing the reliability of this document” and so finds that the document “is of limited support.”
21. The Judge’s final conclusions on the documents are contained in paragraph 27 where he states that he is only able to attach limited weight to the documents because “I do not know the provenance of the documents and their reliability.”
22. There are no proper intelligible and adequate reasons for the Judge’s conclusion that the documents should be afforded limited weight.
23. The Judge states that he has “no way of knowing the reliability of” the Facebook threat, whereas he only needs to assess himself whether, considering all the evidence in the round, the Facebook threat is reasonably likely to be genuine. We find that the Judge erred in his assessment of the Facebook threat, particularly when the factual error with the translation is also considered.
24. The Judge attaches limited weight to the documents because “I do not know the provenance of the documents and their reliability.” These are inadequate reasons for this finding. It is unclear what issues there were with the “provenance” of the documents; one is an internet news article from “Sharpress” and the other a Facebook Messenger message. The “reliability” of the documents is a matter for the Judge to assess alongside all the other evidence. A judge is unlikely to “know” the reliability of a document but should reach a finding as to the reliability of any relevant document applying the relevant standard of proof (in this case, the lower standard).
25. Overall, we find that the Judge erred in law in his consideration of the documents in this case. The documents were material to the overall assessment of the appellant’s claim and so the decision of the Judge must be set aside.
26. We note that the Judge’s findings regarding documentation are also flawed. The Judge merely referenced one paragraph of the respondent’s Review to justify his conclusion on the key issue of documentation; this was clearly inadequate. It was acknowledged that the documentation issue is bound up with the appellant’s credibility and so as we have found the Judge’s credibility findings must be set aside for the reasons already given, then the findings in relation to documentation will also be set aside.
27. Thus, in conclusion, for the reasons above, we find the Judge has made material errors of law in their decision and reasons. We set aside the decision in totality as none of the findings are safe.
28. Applying the guidance in paragraph 7 of the Senior President's Practice Statement and AEB v SSHD [2022] EWCA Civ 1512 and Begum (Remaking or remittal) [2023] UKUT 46 (IAC), given the issues and the amount of fact-finding that will be required to do, we are satisfied that the appeal should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal with no findings preserved.
29. We would add some observations regarding the remaking of this appeal.
30. Firstly, in relation to documentation, both parties must be prepared to address and follow the recent guidance provided in AH, AK & AJ (Identity documentation; returns to the KRI) Iraq CG [2026] UKUT 00150 (IAC).
31. Secondly, Ms Newton on behalf of the respondent raised in her submissions the reliability of the online news article from “Sharpress”.
32. We observe a wider concern that in some instances online news articles are produced solely to support claims in this Chamber. On inspection, some online news articles contain specific factual accounts of events regarding an individual appellant. These articles are posted on what are purported to be genuine news websites, some of which do not provide their news organisation provenance or appear to have no other online footprint. Others are produced by news aggregators. False articles may be given credence by automated journalism. When relying upon online news articles published by overseas non-mainstream media there will usually be a requirement for supporting documentation establishing the bona fides of the online media source, such as metadata from the relevant webpage, or independent reporting of the same facts by established news organisations.
33. In this matter, the burden of proof remains on the appellant, and he is on notice of the respondent's concerns as to the news article relied upon as explained by Ms Newton in her submissions.
Notice of Decision
The First-tier Tribunal has been shown to have made an error of law material to the decision to dismiss the appeal. The determination is set aside. The appeal is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal in Manchester for a complete rehearing with no findings preserved before any judge other than Judge Farrelly.

C R Cole
Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

27 April 2026