Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-001592

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/61991/2023
LP/06595/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 19th of January 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LANDES

Between

B F
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms Jones, Counsel instructed by Sriharans Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr Hulme, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 22 December 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

1. The appellant, a national of Iraq of Kurdish ethnicity, appeals, with the permission of the Upper Tribunal, the decision of the First-Tier Tribunal (“the FTJ”) promulgated on 6 December 2024 dismissing his appeal against the respondent’s decision of 10 November 2023 to refuse his asylum and international protection claims.

Anonymity
2. I continue, on a protective basis, the anonymity order made when granting permission because the appellant has made a claim for international protection which has not yet been determined and there is a potential risk if his identity is made known which outweighs the public interest in open justice.

Background
3. The appellant’s home area is near the Turkish border. His case is that his father forced him to deliver goods to the PKK in the mountains, and he believed he had been seen by the authorities when making that delivery and would be at risk of arrest and torture on return. The respondent did not accept his account, considering it to be incredible.

4. On 4 December 2024, the appellant’s solicitors applied for an adjournment of the hearing on 6 December 2024. They said that they had thought the case had been withdrawn, but on further investigation that day realised that the notice of withdrawal related to the appellant’s case before the asylum support tribunal. They had tried to book counsel once they realised but had been unable to obtain counsel on short notice. Their application was refused on the papers by the duty judge, but they were told that they could, if necessary, reapply to the hearing judge.

5. On the day of the hearing, the appellant through his solicitor applied for an adjournment. The events which followed are the subject of the grounds of appeal, but the appeal proceeded to full hearing with the appellant’s solicitor as advocate for the appellant. A copy of an arrest warrant, which the appellant said had been issued in Iraq for his arrest, was produced at that hearing.

Grounds; discussion; conclusions
6. The grounds challenged firstly the refusal of the FTJ to adjourn, secondly the way the judge dealt with the arrest warrant and thirdly the procedural fairness of the hearing.

7. Sitting with DUTJ Lewis on 30 July 2025, we adjourned the hearing. One reason was to obtain the recording. We gave directions.

8. Unfortunately, it became apparent shortly before this hearing that only part of the recording had been obtained. The FTJ after deciding that this case would proceed on 6 December, had put the hearing of this case back in her list to give time for the solicitor to prepare. The only recording associated with this appeal was the recording from the time the FTJ started the substantive hearing. We could not obtain the other recording in the time available, and it was not clear that it was going to be possible to obtain it in the future, or to obtain it easily if it had not been properly matched up to this appeal.

9. I discussed with the representatives how to proceed and both representatives considered I should proceed with submissions about the arrest warrant first (ground 2) and then reflect whether we needed to adjourn part-heard.

10. We listened in the hearing room to the recording of the beginning of the hearing where the FTJ made a decision on the arrest warrant. Having heard Ms Jones’ submissions, Mr Hulme conceded that there was a material error on ground 2.

11. I agree with Mr Hulme as I explain below.

12. The FTJ’s conclusion about the arrest warrant in her decision was [7]: “Before the hearing, the appellant’s representative said that he has been informed by his office that there is an arrest warrant in 2021 for the appellant in Iraq, which has been uploaded on the day of hearing. The arrest warrant was not translated and it is extremely brief. The interpreter translated it but arrest warrant does not state the crime with he which has been charged and there are four names on it. I place no reliance of this document, as I do not find it credible, in line with Tanveer Ahmed. There was no explanation for why this arrest warrant was not provided earlier but on the day of the hearing.”

13. The FTJ dismissed the appeal finding the appellant’s account to be incredible.

14. The recording indicates that the appellant’s solicitor explained at the beginning of the hearing that there was a crucial arrest warrant which his office had only seen the day before and it needed to be translated. The interpreter then explained what the document was, that it was from the KRG, and it gave 3 of the appellant’s names but the name of his grandfather was missing. The FTJ asked what that had to do with anything and the interpreter said, “this person should be arrested and surrendered to court”. The FTJ asked “all 4 of them” and the interpreter responded, “only him” and “this is the system why 4 names”. The FTJ asked for what crime the appellant had been arrested and the interpreter responded, “it doesn’t say but he must be surrendered according to the police station in Sarsink”. The appellant’s solicitor said that they needed to get the warrant properly translated and to take instructions and the FTJ asked why it would be produced at this late stage and said she was going to continue.

15. The FTJ did not record in the decision that the appellant’s solicitor had applied for an adjournment to have the warrant properly translated or that she had refused the adjournment. On the basis that the hearing was proceeding, the first step should have been whether to admit the arrest warrant into evidence given the late stage it was produced. The FTJ must have admitted it, as she made a positive finding at [7] that she did not find it credible. Listening to the recording, the impression given as to how the FTJ was going to treat the warrant was ambiguous. The representatives acted as if the warrant had not been admitted. The appellant’s solicitor must have thought that the FTJ was not admitting the warrant as, although he asked an extra question in examination in chief, he did not ask about the arrest warrant and did not refer to it in submissions. Reading the appellant’s solicitor’s record of the cross-examination and submissions, the HOPO did not refer to the warrant either. The lack of clarity as to what was happening with the warrant led to procedural irregularity because the appellant may have wanted to give evidence about the warrant and how it had come into his possession and why it was produced at such a late stage (which evidence could potentially have been helpful to the appellant) if it had been clear to his solicitor that he was able to do so.

16. Of course, it may well be that the FTJ would have been perfectly entitled not to admit the warrant but having apparently admitted it, her conclusions about it fed into the adverse credibility findings. Because the warrant was not fully translated, but translated on an ad hoc basis by the interpreter, the FTJ made mistakes of fact about the warrant. The warrant stated the legal articles of the Iraqi Penal code which had allegedly been contravened so saying it does not state the crime is not completely right. Equally the FTJ has misremembered or misrecorded what the interpreter said. He did not say there were 4 names on the warrant. There are not. Only one man, the appellant is the subject of the warrant, but there are 3 parts to his name as recorded on the warrant. It is not clear taking the recording and [7] together whether the FTJ still thought that the warrant related to 4 different people or whether she took as an adverse credibility finding that the wrong number of names were recorded for the appellant, being incidentally mistaken about the number. If she took the latter point as an adverse credibility finding then she was relying in error on the interpreter’s evidence rather than his interpretation, and of course the interpreter is not a witness of fact before the tribunal.

17. It highlights that once the warrant was admitted into evidence and the FTJ intended to consider the contents of the warrant when making findings, then a full translation was necessary. Even if it could be done by the tribunal interpreter, it should have been fully translated from beginning to end so that there was a clear record to form the basis of questions and submissions and to be read into the record of proceedings. The mistakes because of the lack of a full translation and a record of that translation fed into the FTJ’s adverse credibility findings.

18. There being an error of law in the FTJ’s credibility findings, which was material, going to credibility, it was agreed that I did not need to consider the other grounds of appeal. It was agreed that the decision should be remitted to the First-Tier Tribunal with no findings preserved, given the nature of the material error.

Notice of Decision

The judge’s decision contains a material error of law and is set aside.

The appeal is remitted to the First-Tier Tribunal (Hatton Cross) for decision by another judge with no findings preserved.

A Kurdish Bahdini interpreter will be required for the substantive hearing before the First-Tier Tribunal.

A-R Landes

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

14 January 2026