Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-001819

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/54914/2024
LP/07128/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 8 September 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BRUCE
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE JARVIS

Between

ATM
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr E. Fripp, Counsel instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr M. Parvar, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 19 August 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. This order has been made in light of the international protection issues in the appeal which outweigh the general principle of open justice.

DECISION AND REASONS

Introduction

1. The Appellant has appealed a decision of the First-tier Tribunal promulgated on 26 February 2025. In the judgment, the Tribunal dismissed the Appellant’s international protection and human rights appeals against the Respondent’s refusal dated 14 February 2024.

2. Permission to appeal was initially refused by the First-tier Tribunal on 11 April 2025 before being granted on all grounds by the Upper Tribunal on 13 June 2025.

Relevant background

3. In brief, because both parties are expected to know the details of their own respective cases, we note that the Appellant claimed asylum in the United Kingdom; he attended a screening interview on 25 October 2022.

4. The Appellant’s claims to have been a member of the Nepalese Communist Party since 2012 and that he attended six rallies as a supporter in 2011.

5. The Appellant arrived in the United Kingdom on 6 July 2022 with permission to enter as a seasonal worker valid for six months. The Appellant claims that one week after his arrival in the United Kingdom the police raided his family home in Nepal and an arrest warrant was given to the Appellant’s family. The Appellant also contends that the arrest warrant was later reclaimed by the Nepalese police. The Appellant asserts that he faces a real risk of persecution/serious harm on the basis of his political opinion.

6. At the appeal hearing on 19 February 2025, the Appellant was not legally represented; a Presenting Officer attended on behalf of the Respondent.

The error of law hearing

7. The error of law hearing was held in a hybrid format: the Appellant and his counsel joined by video link, the Senior Presenting Officer was present in the Tribunal hearing room at Field House. We are satisfied that there were no technical difficulties such as to have materially inhibited any of the parties’ ability to engage with the error of law proceedings.

8. In advance of the submissions, we forwarded the Appellant’s skeleton argument (dated 11 August 2025) to Mr Parvar who had not received that document in advance of the hearing. Mr Parvar was given time to consider the contents of the document and was content to proceed.

9. We heard oral submissions from both representatives of which we have kept our own note and at the end of the hearing we formally reserved our judgment.

Findings and reasons

10. The Appellant has provided the Upper Tribunal with four grounds appeal as supplemented by a skeleton argument. In light of our conclusions in respect of grounds two and three, it is unnecessary for us to say anything about grounds one and four.

11. In respect of grounds two and three together, Mr Fripp firstly asserted that the Judge had committed a material error of fact when concluding at paragraph 25 of the judgment that the Appellant had waited for five months of his six-month seasonal worker’s Visa before claiming asylum which thereby constituted unreasonable delay under section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004.

12. Mr Fripp contended that the Appellant told the Respondent during his asylum interview that he decided to claim asylum in September 2022 and that the screening interview date of 25 October 2022 could not be reliably taken as the date on which the Appellant first claimed asylum due to the normal process of an asylum interview taking a few weeks to be arranged.

13. In any event, Mr Fripp also argued that, even taking the claim as being 25 October 2022, this meant that the delay in claiming asylum from the Appellant’s arrival in the United Kingdom on 6 July 2022 was in fact a period of just over three months and not five months as contended for by the Judge.

14. Mr Fripp also asserted that the Judge had materially erred either in the context of procedural unfairness or for failure to give adequate reasons by not engaging with any potential explanation from the Appellant as to why he had delayed in claiming asylum.

15. In response, Mr Parvar asserted that there was no evidence to show that the Appellant had claimed asylum earlier than 25 October 2022 and that the Judge was entitled to proceed on the basis that this is when the claim was made. Mr Parvar however accepted nonetheless, that the Judge had erred in stating that the delay had been one of five months.

16. Furthermore, Mr Parvar also accepted that there was force in the Appellant’s argument that there was a failure by the Judge to consider if there was a reasonable explanation for the delay but did not concede the point on the basis that the Appellant should have provided a record of proceedings of the hearing to the Upper Tribunal in order to evidence the claim of procedural unfairness.

17. We find that there is a clear material error of law in respect of the Judge’s assessment of the Appellant’s delay in claiming asylum.

18. We firstly note that the delay issue was not an adverse credibility point raised in the Respondent’s refusal letter or review. Whilst this did not prevent the First-tier Tribunal from considering the point, nonetheless we find that the Judge was obliged by statute (or general fairness principles) to consider whether a reasonable explanation had been provided for that delay.

19. In respect of paragraph 25, there is no indication that the Judge took account of any explanation put forward for the delay or in fact if the Appellant was ever asked to provide one in the hearing. We remind ourselves that the Appellant was unrepresented at the hearing and the issue of delay had not been raised against him in the refusal or review. We therefore find that the Judge materially erred in law by failing to engage with or consider whether there was a reasonable explanation for the Appellant’s delay in claiming asylum.

20. This is enough to lead to the conclusion that the Judge’s decision must be set aside in its entirety. For completeness however, we also find that the Judge’s further findings from paragraphs 27 to 29 do not constitute actual findings in the alternative. We accept Mr Fripp’s submission that the opening sentence of paragraph 27 makes plain that the Judge proceeded to consider the relevant country guidance (KG (Review of current situation) Nepal CG [2006] UKAIT 00076) and the Respondent’s country policy note (Political Affiliation - Nepal (November 2023)) on the predicate basis that the Appellant had not credibly established that he was of interest to the police.

Notice of Decision

We therefore set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal Judge in its entirety and conclude that fairness requires that the appeal be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard by a different judge.

I P Jarvis

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber