Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-001542

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/02206/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 25 November 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LODATO

Between

UH
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Unrepresented
For the Respondent: Ms Rushforth, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre on 11 November 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. I have decided to maintain the anonymity order originally made in these proceedings by the First-tier Tribunal because the underlying claim involves international protection issues in that the appellant claims to fear persecution or serious harm on return to Namibia. In reaching this decision, I am mindful of the fundamental principle of open justice, but I am satisfied, taking the appellant’s case at its highest for these purposes, that the potential grave risks outweigh the rights of the public to know of her identity.
2. The appellant appeals with permission against the decision, dated 21 October 2024, of a judge of the First-tier Tribunal Judge (‘the judge’) to dismiss the appeal on international protection and human rights grounds.
Background
3. The appellant, a Namibian citizen, seeks international protection on the basis that she claims to face a real risk of persecution from her husband, a non‑state actor, due to a history of sustained abuse. She contends that the Namibian authorities have failed to provide her with effective protection despite her repeated reports to the police and engagement with the traditional authorities. Her circumstances are said to be compounded by entrenched patriarchal norms and systemic shortcomings in addressing gender‑based violence. She asserts that internal relocation would be unreasonable given her prior unsuccessful attempt to relocate, her husband’s ability to trace her, and socio‑linguistic barriers to resettlement outside her home region.
Appeal to the First-tier Tribunal
4. For the purposes of the present proceedings, the following key matters emerge from the judge’s decision:
a. The issues in dispute between the parties were set out between [7] and [10] as state protection, internal relocation and Article 8. There was no reference to risk on return being raised as a disputed matter. Between [26] and [28], the judge explained that the respondent had relied exclusively on sufficiency of protection and internal relocation as addressing any risk which the appellant might face from her abusive husband.
b. The judge made the following observations about his analytical process in deciding the appeal, at [16]:
I am mindful that the purpose of this judgement is to explain my decision and the reasons for it. The parties are well aware of the issues and the evidence and so it is not necessary to explore every aspect of the case in detail. In this judgement I accordingly focus upon those facts and matters which appear to me to be the key issues and most relevant to my decision and reasons. For the avoidance of doubt, I confirm that I have considered all of the evidence and submissions, even if they are not explicitly referred to in this judgment. […]
c. Between [29] and [61], the judge addressed his mind to sufficiency of protection. He relied on the complaints which the appellant had made repeatedly to the police and to the traditional authorities. He noted that one of the police complaints resulted in a financial penalty being imposed on her husband and that a second investigation had not apparently drawn to a conclusion. These official police procedures were treated as examples of effective state protection. It was pointed out that medical staff had encouraged her to report her husband’s violence to the police. This she did but later withdrew the complaint when her husband attended the police station. The judge referred to 2021 CPIN on women fearing gender-based violence and found that a small number of shelters were available in Namibia. Reliance was placed on the ability of the appellant’s brother to assist her if necessary. At [60]-[61], it was decided that risk remained a “live issue”, but that state protection met that risk.
d. The judge considered internal relocation between [63]-[71]. He began his analysis by referring to the appellant’s claim that her husband had found her in a matter of weeks after she had previously attempted relocate some three and a half hours away from her home area by car. She feared that he could find her again if she attempted to do so again. The judge found that the appellant had not established an inability to work in other regions in Namibia. The overall conclusion was reached that the appellant had failed to show that she could not viably relocate.
e. The judge dismissed the appeal on all grounds including the Article 8 human rights claim.
Appeal to the Upper Tribunal
5. The appellant applied for permission to appeal in reliance on the following grounds:

• Ground 1: the judge failed to properly consider relevant country background information before concluding that the appellant could obtain sufficient state protection.
• Ground 2: the judge did not explain how the role and influence of the appellant’s brother factored into the assessment of risk on return.
• Ground 3: the judge inadequately addressed the appellant’s previous experience of relocation and her husband’s ability to trace her, when assessing the feasibility and reasonableness of internal relocation.
6. In a decision dated 10 June 2025, Upper Tribunal Judge Loughran granted permission for all grounds to be argued.
7. At the error of law hearing, I heard oral submissions from both parties. I address any submissions of significance in the discussion section below.
Discussion
8. The touchstone for considering inadequacy of reasoning as an error of law remains R (Iran) & Others v SSHD [2005] EWCA Civ 982. At [13]-[14] of the judgment of Brook LJ, it was emphasised that reasons must be sufficiently detailed to show the principles on which a decision was made and why the ultimate decision was reached. Reasons need not be elaborate nor is it necessary to address each and every matter which might have had a bearing on the overall decision if those which were material to the reasoning are articulated. In DPP Law Ltd v Paul Greenberg [2021] EWCA Civ 672, the Court of Appeal, in the context of employment proceedings, considered adequacy of reasoning as an error of law. Popplewell LJ, stressed, at [57] the need to consider judicial reasons fairly and as whole without being hypercritical. Appellate restraint is required to read reasons benevolently. “Simple, clear and concise” reasoning was to be encouraged to enable to parties to broadly understand why they had won or lost. Further, it should not be assumed that an element of the evidence which was not expressly discussed was left out of account. While these observations were made in the context of employment proceedings, they are of relevance in the immigration and asylum sphere because this is also a jurisdiction in which decisions are made by expert tribunals attenuated by the need to give appeals anxious scrutiny.
9. I address ground two first. It is clear to me from reading the decision fairly and as a whole that the judge accepted that the appellant was at risk on return. This is evident from his distillation of the issues summarised above where he considered sufficiency of protection and internal relocation as the essential issues to be resolved in the protection appeal. It would make little sense to embark on the kind of detailed assessment of sufficiency of protection and internal relocation if the judge were not first satisfied that the appellant was at risk. This is because sufficiency of protection and internal relocation can only arise for meaningful consideration if risk is first established as otherwise there would simply be no need to seek protection or relocate. Ground two is misconceived because the judge never found that the appellant was not at risk. To the extent that the complaint under this heading is, in fact, more directed to the adequacy of reasoning which underpinned the conclusion that the appellant’s brother might assist her on return, there is no ambiguity in the judge’s rationale and it is perfectly clear to understand. In any event, this was but a small factor of a multi-factoral assessment. On no sensible interpretation could the conclusion be reached that the passing observations made at paragraph [59] were in any way central to overall conclusion on this point.
10. Turning to the first ground of appeal, the complaint is that the judge did not expressly consider particular identified paragraphs in the CPIN which are said to have supported the appellant’s case on sufficiency of protection. There are two fundamental difficulties with this argument. The first is that the judge plainly considered the CPIN as can be seen in his express reference to the limited availability of shelters at [58]. It can be inferred that the judge considered the information contained within the CPIN even if he has not summarised it in exhaustive detail. The second is that this amounts to a call for different judicial reasoning not that the reasons which were given were in any way legally flawed or inadequate. The judge’s detailed analysis of this issue fully explains why he reached the conclusion he did. The appellant is not in a state of uncertainty about why the judge found against her on this point. He plainly attached significant weight to the stated background of the police acting when presented with her allegations of domestic violence. The judge was entitled to rely on and attach weight to this evidence to find that sufficient protection existed.
11. Ground three had more substance because while the judge noted the appellant’s evidence that she had been found by her husband when she had previously attempted to relocate, it is difficult to understand what was made of this important feature of her case. On the face of it, this tended to show that her husband had the wherewithal and inclination to seek her out in a distant part of the country. I found it difficult to piece together on what basis the judge concluded that the appellant’s husband would not do the same again. Had this conclusion stood alone, I would have been minded to treat the reasoning as deficient and amounting to an error of law. However, an error of law must also be material. As I have set out above, there are no legal flaws with the analysis which went to the issue of sufficiency of protection. I agree with Ms Rushforth that this was a complete answer to the protection grounds of appeal. In short, with sufficient state protection in place, the appellant has no need to internally relocate. Any error going to the judge’s consideration of internal relocation was not, in my judgement, material.

Notice of Decision
The judge’s decision did not involve material errors of law, and I dismiss the appeal against his decision.

P Lodato

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

19 November 2025