UI-2025-001458

• Status of case: Unreported
• Hearing date: 3 Sep 2025
• Promulgation date: 12 Sep 2025
• Publication date: 29 Sep 2025
• Last updated on: 29 Sep 2025

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No:
UI-2025-001458

First-tier Tribunal No:
PA/63350/2024
LP/01514/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 12th of September 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KAMARA

Between

PB
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mrs P Glass, counsel instructed by Lannex Immigration & Legal Advice Services
For the Respondent: Ms A Ahmed, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 3 September 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, 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. The appellant has been granted permission to appeal the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dismissing their appeal following a hearing which took place on 6 February 2025.
Anonymity
2. An anonymity direction was made previously and is maintained because this appeal concerns a protection claim.
Factual Background
3. The appellant is a national of Botswana now aged twenty-nine. He arrived in the United Kingdom in August 2022 and applied for asylum on 24 August 2022. That claim was based on a fear of a relative who wished to take away the appellant’s inheritance following the death of the appellant’s father in 2020. That claim was refused by the Secretary of State in a decision dated 25 April 2024.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal
4. The First-tier Tribunal heard evidence from the appellant and found that there was no refugee convention reason; that the appellant’s claim was fabricated and that his removal to Botswana was not disproportionate.
The appeal to the Upper Tribunal
5. The somewhat brief grounds of appeal made the following points. It was accepted that there was no refugee convention reason; but it was argued that there was a failure to apply anxious scrutiny; that there was no assessment of the expert evidence and that contradictory findings were made
6. Permission to appeal was granted on the basis sought, with the judge granting permission making the following remarks.
This is a borderline decision. Although the grounds are poorly pleaded, it is at least arguable that the judge failed to engage adequately with the opinion given by Dr Karekwaivanane as to the availability of protection and/or internal relocation [21]. Although the second point is vague and nothing is likely to turn on the judge’s phrasing at [18], I do not limit the grant of permission.
Whether any potential lack of reasoning was likely to be material to the outcome of the appeal will need to be considered in more detail at a hearing given that the appellant only claims to fear one person in Botswana. I also note that the judge rejected the credibility of the appellant’s account without appearing to give any reasons [23]. Whether this is a Robinson obvious error will be a matter for the judge who hears the appeal in the Upper Tribunal to consider.
7. The respondent filed a Rule 24 response dated 11 June 2025, in which the appeal was opposed with detailed comments being made.
The error of law hearing
8. The matter comes before the Upper Tribunal to determine whether the decision contains an error of law and, if it is so concluded, to either re-make the decision or remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal to do so. The appellant’s solicitors neglected to file a bundle with the Upper Tribunal in breach of directions. Even on the hearing day itself, no such bundle was forthcoming. While Mrs Glass had been furnished with a paper bundle, this did not contain the report of the expert and the remaining items had been marked. I am grateful to Ms Ahmed for providing copies of various documents including the appellant’s bundle before the First-tier Tribunal, skeleton argument and the Respondent’s Review.
9. The hearing was attended by representatives for both parties as above. Both representatives made submissions and the conclusions below reflect those arguments and submissions where necessary.
Discussion
10. I am not satisfied that the appellant’s appeal was approached with anxious scrutiny. The appellant relied upon a 26-page expert report from Dr George Hamandishe Karekwaivanane, a lecturer at the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh. While the respondent made points in the review regarding this piece of evidence, the expertise of Dr Karekwaivanane was not challenged.
11. At [21] of the decision and reasons, the judge refers to the report, noting that the expert considered the appellant’s case to be plausible and that internal relocation was not feasible for the appellant. The judge did not proceed to assess this report or give any indication as to the weight to be attached to it. Furthermore, in stating at [22] that the appellant was not a credible witness, no reference was made to the detailed opinion of the expert as to the plausibility of the appellant’s account. At this point, it is noted that the respondent was wrong to dismiss the report on the basis that the appellant’s account was accepted at face value. The briefest glance at the report shows that this is not the case and a very careful assessment of the appellant’s case was carried out by the expert.
12. As to the other point made in the grant of permission, the judge gave no reasons to support the statement that the appellant was not a credible witness. Elsewhere in the decision, concerns are raised with aspects of the evidence, but they concern peripheral matters and do not concern matters which go to the core of the appellant’s account. It can only be inferred that these were the reasons the appellant was found to lack credibility.
13. The judge says at [18] that the appellant failed to corroborate his claim that he complained to the police. In making this statement, the judge made no comment on the evidence which showed that the appellant had raised his fears with the authorities in Botswana at [42] of the bundle or what he said in his appeal witness statement at paragraph 10 about the refusal of the police to produce a report after he complained to them. There is also no indication from the decision that these issues were ever put to the appellant or his representative for a response.
14. The second matter raised by the judge is that the appellant was in Botswana for 2 years without him being killed by his uncle. While that is obviously the case, this comment does not take into consideration the appellant’s claim that he was seriously assaulted by his uncle in 2022 and effectively taken prisoner. Thus it is not the case that nothing happened as the judge appears to suggest.
15. When one takes into consideration that the appellant has been suffering from poor mental health since arriving in the United Kingdom, one is left with the impression that the consideration of his appeal was not assessed with the care it deserved.
16. I would further add my concerns about the abysmal level of representation the appellant has received from his current solicitors who have failed to submit a bundle or do anything else to adequately represent him other than to instruct counsel.
17. While Mrs Glass was well meaning, I was not assisted by her submissions and it was apparent that there was little preparation undertaken by her in advance of the hearing.
18. I canvassed the views of the parties as to the venue of any remaking and both were of the view that the matter ought to be remitted given there were no preserved findings of fact. Applying AEB [2022] EWCA Civ 1512 and Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 00046 (IAC), I carefully 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 Statements. I took into consideration the history of this case, the nature and extent of the findings to be made as well as the fact that the nature of the errors of law in this case meant that the appellant was deprived of an adequate consideration of his protection appeal. I further consider that it would be unfair for either party to be unable to avail themselves of the two-tier decision-making process and therefore remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal.

Notice of Decision
The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal did involve the making of an error on a point of law.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside.
The appeal is remitted, de novo, to the First-tier Tribunal to be reheard by any judge except First-tier Tribunal Judge Swinnerton.


T Kamara

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber


3 September 2025