Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002100

First-tier Tribunal Nos: PA/67633/2023
LP/09267/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

7th July August 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LOUGHRAN

Between

AA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

The Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr G Brown of Counsel, instructed by CB Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms L Clewley, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 10 July 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 appeals with the permission of First-tier Tribunal Judge Sills against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Norris (‘the judge’) dated 9 March 2025.
2. I have maintained the anonymity order in respect of the Appellant. I consider that on the specific facts of this appeal, the maintenance of the integrity of the United Kingdom’s immigration system and the appellant, having raised a claim to international protection, are such that an anonymity order is a justified derogation from the principle of open justice.
Background
3. The appellant is a national of Iraq and is of Kurdish ethnicity.
4. The appellant claims he worked as an electrician in Iraq and that his customers included a high-ranking member of the PUK. Between 2020 and 2021 the appellant states that he worked with two men H and Z, who were friends with each other and that he paid them in cash for jobs that they did for him. When the high-ranking member of the PUK asked the appellant to carry out some electrical work (rewiring a large meeting hall) at the PUK’s intelligence headquarters, the appellant took H and Z men with him to complete the work. The high-ranking member of the PUK, who had asked the appellant to undertake the task, informed the appellant that he would inspect the work over the next few days.
5. The appellant was in Sulaymaniyah when he received a call from his neighbour who told him that the PUK had raided his, the appellant’s, house. The appellant was concerned because the only link he had to the PUK was the work that he had done so he called H and Z, but their telephones were switched off. The appellant called H’s brother, who told the appellant that H and Z had been arrested.
6. The appellant went to stay with his maternal aunt in Hawler (Erbil) for two days. Using her husband’s mobile he called H’s brother again. H’s brother told him that the intelligence service had accused H and Z of espionage i.e. installing monitoring devices when carrying out the electrical work at the PUK headquarters.
7. The appellant’s aunt’s husband arranged for the appellant to leave Iraq. He travelled via Turkey to France where he stayed for a few days before coming to the UK. He arrived in the UK on 15 January 2022 and claimed asylum on arrival.
The Respondent’s Decision
8. In a decision dated 19 December 2023 the respondent refused the appellant’s protection and human rights claim. The respondent accepted that the appellant was an Iraqi national of Kurdish ethnicity. However the respondent did not accept the appellant’s account to have come to the adverse attention of the PUK.
9. The respondent maintained her decision in her review dated 13 June 2024.
The Appeal to the First-tier Tribunal
10. The appellant appealed against the respondent’s decision and the appeal came before the judge on 4 March 2025. The appellant was represented by Mr V Madanhi, of CB Solicitors and the respondent was represented by Mr H Waseem, a Home Office Presenting Officer.
11. The judge identified the following as the one agreed issue in dispute:
“Has the Appellant come to the adverse attention of the Iraqi authorities as a result of his employees installing listening devices in the PUK Headquarters, thus showing to the lower standard that he has the Convention reason of imputed political opinion?”
12. The appellant gave oral evidence in front of the judge via an interpreter.
13. In a decision dated 9 March 2025 the judge dismissed the appellant’s appeal. The judge concluded that the appellant’s account taken overall was implausible and inconsistent.
The Appeal to the Upper Tribunal
14. The appellant applied for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal relying on two grounds. The judge erred in law by:
(1) failing to apply authority on plausibility as an assessment criteria;
(2) failing to apply authority on the approach to answers recorded at the screening interview.
15. Permission to appeal was granted by First-tier Tribunal Judge Sills in the following terms:
“The grounds identify arguable errors of law. It is arguable that the judge erred in law or acted irrationally in relation to the plausibility findings criticised in the grounds.
It is also arguable that the judge erred in relying on the appellant’s answers in the screening interview. The decision does not set out or show consideration of what, if any, explanation the appellant gave for the way his answers at the screening interview are recorded.”
16. The respondent did not file and serve a response under Rule 24 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008.
17. At the hearing I heard submissions from Mr G Brown on behalf of the appellant and Mr S Clewley on behalf of the respondent, which I have taken into account.
Discussion
Ground 1
18. The Court of Appeal in HK v the Secretary of State [2006] EWCA Civ 1037 and MAH (Egypt) [2023] EWCA Civ 216 has emphasised the dangers of overreliance on inherent plausibility of an appellant’s account.
19. The judge records that she found the appellant’s account to be implausible. The aspects of the appellant’s account that she considered implausible primarily focused on the actions of the PUK and included:
(a) “It is not credible that the PUK would not have at least asked for the names of those who were working on such a high-security project over a period of three to four weeks (the Appellant has said it was 20 days) and/or carry out any kind of vetting process.”
(b) “…’ it is simply not credible that neither he nor the PUK would have made more than the most cursory of enquiries about the people the Appellant brought with him to work on this most sensitive of projects.”
(c) “It is not plausible that the PUK would have allowed H to continue working on the re-wiring project if they had carried out vetting which showed his relationship to someone who had been perceived as hostile to their organisation.”
(d) “Given that H and Z were the Appellant’s employees and he was the one who had been contracted to carry out the work, it is implausible that the PUK would not have gone to the Appellant’s home and arrested him first.”
(e) “…’ it is implausible that the intelligence services would have told H’s brother the reason for the arrest, more particularly so if the Appellant was to be arrested for the same thing but had not yet been found.”
20. The judge did not refer to any country background to support her findings outlined above at paragraph 19(a)-(d). In respect of her finding at paragraph 19(e), the judge cited the following extract of the respondent’s Country Policy and Information Note Iraq: Actors of Protection:
“Authorities often failed to notify family members of the arrest or location of detention, resulting in incommunicado detention if not enforced disappearance. … in many cases, central government forces did not inform detainees of the reasons for their detention or the charges against them.”
21. I am not satisfied that the country background evidence cited by the judge is in fact authority that the authorities and the PUK would never inform why a family member has been arrested. It simply states that they often fail to do so. I am therefore not satisfied that it establishes that that aspect of the appellant’s account is implausible.
22. As I have already outlined, the judge does not cite any other country background evidence in support of her findings that other aspects of the appellant’s account were implausible. I am therefore satisfied that the judge’s findings were not grounded in the background evidence and that the judge placed an overreliance on matters which she considered were implausible through her own prism of what she considered to be reasonable.
Ground 2
23. I am also satisfied that the judge materially erred in respect of answers given by the appellant in his screening interview.
24. The only question the appellant was asked in respect of his claim was at question 4.1 of the screening interview, where it is recorded that the appellant would have been asked, “Please briefly explain all of the reasons why you cannot return to your home country.” In response, the appellant replies “I have been accused by PUK of making a mistake so I escape from Iraq. If I was to return I will be killed.”
25. The judge records the appellant’s answer in her decision and finds that the appellant’s answer does not accurately reflect what his claim is about. The judge considers that the appellant has not been “accused” of anything by the PUK but claims to be suspected of deliberately planting bugging devices in their security HQ, or being complicit in that conduct. The judge does not consider that “making a mistake” is an accurate description of those suspicions. The judge accepted the respondent’s submission that the two accounts are irreconcilable.
26. The case of JA (Afghanistan) v the Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 450 states, at paragraph 24, that there is:
“…’an obligation to consider with care how much weight is to be attached to evidence contained within a screening interview, having regard to the circumstances in which it came into existence. That is particularly important when considering the significance to be attached to answers given in the course of an interview and recorded only by the person asking questions on behalf of the Secretary of State. Such evidence may be entirely reliable, but there is obviously room for mistakes and misunderstandings, even when the person being questioned speaks English fluently. The possibility of error becomes greater when the person being interviewed requires the services of an interpreter, particularly if the interpreter is not physically present. It becomes greater still if the person being interviewed is vulnerable by reason of age or infirmity. The written word acquires a degree of certainty which the spoken word may not command. The ‘anxious scrutiny’ which all claimants for asylum are entitled to expect begins with a careful consideration of the weight that should properly be attached to answers given in their interviews.”
27. The appellant’s screening interview was conducted on 19 January 2022, some four days after he had arrived in the UK. It was conducted over the telephone via Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre due to COVID restrictions. This is recorded in the front page of the screening interview.
28. The judge did not consider the circumstances of the interview and whether that impacted on her consideration of what she considered to be discrepant answers. I am satisfied that her failure to do so constitutes a material error of law.
29. I note that the judge found there to be significant discrepancies in the appellant’s account and that she describes the appellant’s account as being “riddled with inconsistencies.” However, I am satisfied that the judge’s approach to her assessment of the plausibility of the appellant’s account and his evidence in the screening interview contaminates her whole assessment of the appellant’s credibility.
30. I am satisfied that the entire decision is required to be set aside and that no findings of fact can be preserved.
31. Applying the guidance in paragraph 7 of the Senior President’s Practice Statement and AEB v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 1512 and Begum (Remaking or remittal) [2023] UKUT 00046 (IAC), given the issues and the amount of fact-finding that will be required to do, I consider that the appeal should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal.
Notice of Decision
(a) There is an error of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal. Accordingly the decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside.
(b) The decision will be remitted to the First tier Tribunal to be heard by a different judge.
(c) No findings of fact are preserved.

G. Loughran

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

22 July 2025