Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: UI-2025-001280
First-tier Tribunal Number: HU/51543/2024
LH/08123/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued

13th June 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE WOODCRAFT

Between

SR
(Anonymity order made)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr A Slatter, Counsel
For the Respondent: Mr Walker, Home Office Presenting Officer

DECISION AND REASONS

Heard at Field House on 6 June 2025
Order Regarding Anonymity.
1. Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant is granted anonymity, and is to be referred to in these proceedings by the initials SR. 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.
The Appellant
2. The Appellant is a national of Bangladesh born on 20 June 2000. He appeals with leave against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 25 January 2025 which had dismissed the appellant’s appeal against a decision of the respondent dated 7 February 2024. That decision in turn was to refuse the appellant’s application for international protection. The appellant entered the UK on 16 March 2021 by aircraft, arriving on a student visa which expired on 6 August 2021. The appellant claimed asylum on 17 November 2022.
The Appellant’s Case
3. The appellant’s case was summarised by the judge at [11] to [13] of the determination. The appellant is at risk because of his political opinion. He is a member of the Bangladeshi National Party (‘BNP’). and has been targeted because of his political activities. This targeting includes the issuing of false charges against him. He was a leader of the BNP at village level. He joined the organisation in 2018 but was not politically active before then. In that role he used to co-ordinate rallies. The police came to arrest him in 2020, he was not known to the police before this date. He attended demonstrations before this, but does not identify the presence of any political opponents at that demonstration. He is the subject of two arrest warrants for the offences of murder and what is described as a ‘Cyber case’. These create a risk of harm on return because the appellant is being targeted wrongly on the basis of his political opinion. The Respondent says that the appellant’s claim is not credible.
The Decision at First Instance
4. The judge found that the appellant had not established that the arrest warrants were reliable. The circumstances in which the appellant came to possess them remained unexplained and contrary to the objective evidence. The appellant had not explained how he came into possession of such warrants, or addressed the difficulties with the documents themselves such as the fact that the warrant was not in the ‘correct’ format and should come by way of ‘Order Sheet’ rather than the warrant itself. The appellant’s claim to be wanted for murder was inconsistent with his ability to leave Bangladesh without encumbrance from a major hub which had security controls.
5. When interviewed by the respondent, the appellant did not mention threats he claimed to have received between May 2021 and mid-2022. The appellant claimed that he had proof that he received threats via text and WhatsApp, only to say that the messages were subsequently deleted. This was a change in his account. The appellant’s delay in claiming asylum showed that there was not a genuine fear of persecution when he arrived in the United Kingdom. The appellant claimed asylum in November 2022 after the threats to him had apparently stopped.
6. The Appellant’s general credibility as a witness was undermined by his behaviour. The Appellant did not claim asylum at the earliest opportunity and deceived the Respondent as to his intention to return to Bangladesh. There was not an ongoing risk to the appellant given the changed political situation in Bangladesh. There had been a change of government since the Appellant made his application for asylum. I pause to note here that the Awami League who had clashed with the BNP were no longer in power in Bangladesh. The appellant’s claim was not credible. He had no subjective fear of persecution. The judge dismissed the appeal.
The Onward Appeal
7. The appellant appealed this decision on five grounds. Ground 1 was that there had been a failure to consider key evidence including social media threats the appellant received. Ground 2 was that the judge had made no findings on whether the arrest warrants were genuine or fraudulent, nor (ground 3) on whether the risk to the appellant persisted. Ground 4 was that the judge dismissed the risk to the appellant based on a claimed “change of government” but failed to provide any supporting country evidence. Ground 5 argued that the judge dismissed concerns about the rushed nature of the Home Office asylum interview, stating that the interview lasted 70 minutes with 54 questions. Interview length however did not necessarily mean fairness. The core issue was whether the appellant was given a proper opportunity to explain his case. I note here that ground 5 had no merit and was not pursued before me. The First-tier granted permission to appeal on 18 March 2025 stating: “the grounds are clearly arguable. The judgment arguably does not find any facts at all.”
The Hearing Before Me
8. In consequence of the grant of permission the matter came before me to determine in the first place whether there was a material error of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal such that it fell to be set aside. If there was then I would make directions on the rehearing of the appeal. If there was not the decision at first instance would stand.
9. For the appellant counsel adopted his skeleton argument. As far as grounds 1 and2 were concerned the judge had not engaged with the evidence in the bundle before him. There was documentation to show the appellant’s senior position in the BNP. There was a letter from Bangladesh dated 15 February 2024 regarding the appellant’s activities and at page 136 of the bundle a letter regarding the appellant’s activities in the United Kingdom. Ground 1 referred to the messages the appellant had received which were at page 146 of the bundle, those were threats the appellant had received whilst in the United Kingdom but the judge did not engage with any of them. There was no reference to those documents in the judge’s decision.
10. The judge misstated what the evidence said by referring to the appellant leaving Bangladesh after the issue of the arrest warrants. In fact they were issued after the appellant had arrived in the United Kingdom. One was for the cyber case and the other was the murder charge. It was not explained why the judge thought that the warrants predated the appellant’s departure from Bangladesh. The judge had taken a point against the appellant based on this misunderstanding of when the warrants were issued. It was a major flaw in the assessment of the warrants.
11. Ground 4 challenged the lack of reasoning at [22] of the determination where the judge had said: “Even if I found the appellant’s account was credible, I do not find there is an ongoing risk to him given the changed political situation in Bangladesh. There has been a change of government since the Appellant made his application for asylum.” Counsel argued that it was for the respondent to show that the changed political situation meant that it was safe for the appellant to return. In any event there had to be a period of time after which it could be demonstrated that the situation had resolved itself. There was at present a country guidance case pending on this very point whether extant arrest warrants were still valid following the departure from power of the Awami league. There was a lack of reasoning by the judge why the change of regime meant that the arrest warrants would not be enforced against the appellant. There was no evidence either way on that. Where there were had been a violent change in regime there needed to be a longer period of time for it to be said that the appellant was not at risk because of false charges.
12. The skeleton argument indicated that ground 5 was not being pursued. The Tribunal should find a material error of law and the matter should be transferred back to the First-tier to be heard after the country guidance case referred to was decided.
13. For the respondent it was acknowledged that the strongest ground the appellant had was the argument that he had not left Bangladesh after the issue of the arrest warrants but in fact they had postdated his arrival in the United Kingdom. That was an error of fact and was appellant’s strongest point. The judge had considered the evidence before him including evidence of the change of regime.
14. In conclusion counsel argued that whatever evidence the judge had considered about the change of government had not been referred to in the determination itself. The judge had referred to fraudulent documents being widespread but so were false charges. That there were false documents in existence did not mean that these charges were false.
Discussion and Findings
15. This is in essence a reasons based challenge to a carefully written determination focusing on one point in particular namely that the judge when referring to arrest warrants not being genuine had stated that they were issued before the appellant left Bangladesh when in fact they bore dates after the appellant had arrived in the United Kingdom. If the only reason why the judge had taken against the arrest warrants was because of the muddle over their dates, there might be some merit in this challenge to the judge’s overall credibility findings.
16. There were however a number of problems with the arrest warrants which the judge very carefully set out in his determination. They were not in the correct format and they were of a type that could be easily obtained. There was no proper explanation for how the appellant had come into possession of these documents which it was reasonable to expect that the appellant would be aware of that. How they came into existence and how the appellant obtained them were crucial issues in the case which the appellant could not deal with.
17. The remaining grounds of onward appeal are mere disagreements with the findings made by the judge. The appellant claimed that he had received threats due to his activities but as the judge pointed out this was not the case he had put to the respondent in interview. The appellant had claimed to have proof of threatening messages but had then said they were deleted. The appellant appears to have produced further threatening messages but given the lack of credibility in the appellant’s earlier claims it is difficult to see how these subsequent claimed messages can take matters significantly further.
18. I remind myself that the judge had the opportunity of seeing the appellant give evidence and be questioned and was therefore in a position to form a view of the appellant’s general credibility. The judge did not find the appellant to be a credible witness for the reasons given in the determination. I do not agree with the grant of permission to appeal in this case stating that it was arguable that the judge had not found any facts. A careful reading of the determination shows that was certainly not the case.
19. The appellant’s main fear was said to be from persons involved with the Awami League. That organisation had been in power until the flight of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh following demonstrations against the government. The fact of the matter is however that the Awami league is no longer in power and even if (which the judge did not accept) the appellant’s fears of the Awami league had at one point been justified, that could no longer be the case given the change in government. I noted during the hearing that the appellant had not sought to put in any expert report on the present situation in Bangladesh. No reason was given to me for this omission. The burden of proof rested on the appellant. Whilst there were various news reports dealing with crime in Bangladesh there was nothing of substance to indicate present risk.
20. Submissions were made to me that there was a country guidance case on this issue which had not yet been listed for hearing therefore the case should be further adjourned until country guidance was given. In AB (Sudan) [2013] EWCA Civ 921 the Court indicated that the power to stay litigation must be exercised cautiously and only when, in the interests of justice, it is necessary to do so (for example, if the impending decision is likely to have a critical impact on the current litigation). The difficulty for the appellant in this case is that the problems with the arrest warrants go beyond the question of whether they were issued by one government and might or might not be enforced by another government. The problems with the arrest warrants were so fundamental that the judge could not accept that they were genuine. That was a finding open to the judge for the reasons I have given above, see paragraph 16. In those circumstances it would not be in the interests of justice to simply adjourn this case to await a country guidance case which would not be relevant to the facts of this appeal.
21. During submissions counsel confirmed the contents of the skeleton argument that ground 5 was not being pursued. This must be right. The appellant had every opportunity to explain his case in interview. The interview was neither unduly short nor unduly long. The problem the appellant is that he subsequently sought to bring forward matters he had not mentioned in interview. That was a credibility issue which the judge had to decide on which he did making an adverse finding of credibility against the appellant for the failure to mention relevant matters. Overall this appeal amounts to no more than a disagreement with the decision of the judge and an attempt to re-litigate the matter. The grounds of onward appeal do not indicate any material error of law in the First-tier determination and I dismiss the appellant’s appeal.
Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of an error of law and I uphold the decision to dismiss the Appellant’s appeal
Appellant’s appeal dismissed

Signed this 6th day of June 2025

……………………………………………….
Judge Woodcraft
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge