Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002324

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/57432/2024

LP/05593/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 25th of September 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KHAN
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE Ó CEALLAIGH KC

Between

MABA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Iqbal of Counsel, instructed by Hoffman Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr Tufan, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 17 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 appeals with permission against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal by which his protection appeal was dismissed.
2. The appellant is a citizen of Egypt who arrived in the United Kingdom on 29 November 2022. He claimed asylum. On 23 January 2024 his asylum claim was refused and he brought an appeal. By a determination promulgated on 28 January 2025 his appeal was dismissed, following a hearing, by First-tier Tribunal Judge Clarke.
3. Permission to appeal was granted by Upper Tribunal Judge Sheridan on 22 July 2025. While Judge Sheridan granted permission on Ground 5 specifically, he did not restrict the grounds that could be argued.
4. The matter now comes before us to determine whether the First-tier Tribunal erred in law, and if so whether any such error was material and whether the decision of the First-tier Tribunal should be set aside.
5. The appellant and respondent were ably represented by Mr Iqbal and Mr Tufan respectively. We are grateful to them for their very helpful submissions.
Grounds
6. Mr Iqbal very realistically confined himself in his submissions to Ground 5.
7. By this Ground it is argued that the First-tier Tribunal erred in law, as it was put in the grant of permission by Upper Tribunal Judge Sheridan, by “failing to take into consideration the objective evidence” about prison conditions in Egypt. Judge Sheridan also considered that it was arguable that such conditions should have been considered as part of the primary case, rather than in the alternative, given the apparent acceptance that there were criminal proceedings against the appellant that might lead to a prison sentence.
8. The grounds of appeal assert at [5.3] that:
“The appellant submitted comprehensive reports from independent human rights organisations that document the serious risks faced by detainees, particularly for those arrested for non-violent crimes such as fraud.”
9. The grounds then refer to a number of such reports and state that the “…failure to adequately consider this documentary evidence constitutes an error of law”.
10. However, those documents were not in fact before the First-tier Tribunal. They were not in the hearing bundle, and Mr Iqbal (who did not draft the grounds) accepted that in reality the only evidence that was actually before the Judge in respect of the conditions of prisons was the respondent’s 2023 CPIN on opposition to the state in Egypt.
11. This document, as the Executive Summary makes clear, is directed to the treatment of political dissidents. It is not suggested that the appellant is a political dissident. The basis on which the application was put to Upper Tribunal Judge Sheridan was not therefore factually accurate, as the grounds were seriously misleading. That is unfortunate indeed though we say no more about it.
Submissions
12. Mr Iqbal, in helpful, focused submissions sought to persuade us that the availability of the CPIN, even in the absence of those other documents, meant that the FTTJ had erred in law.
13. Mr Iqbal submitted first that the CPIN “did not deny” that prison conditions reached the Article 3 ECHR threshold in general. It was, therefore, for the Home Office to adduce evidence showing that the appellant would be treated less harshly than political prisoners. By submitting that the appellant was likely to be treated less harshly than the political prisoners were, the Home Office was making a “novel point”, seeking to “compartmentalise” different kinds of prisoner.
14. Mr Iqbal also suggested -- that the Home Office had a “duty of candour” as these were “public law proceedings”, and so should itself have adduced evidence in respect of prison conditions in Egypt. When the panel put to him that the appellant had only adduced evidence of his prison sentence on the morning of the hearing, he said that if the respondent was prejudiced by the new evidence she should have applied to adjourn.
15. Mr Iqbal suggested that the Home Office was wrongly seeking to “draw an inference” from the fact that the CPIN referred to the treatment of political dissidents to the proposition that other prisoners were treated differently. When the panel suggested that it was in fact the appellant who was seeking to draw an inference from the treatment of political dissidents to the treatment of all prisoners, he said that the judge should have: (i) found that conditions for prisoners in general as evidenced in the CPIN breached Article 3 ECHR; and (ii) decided whether those conditions would also be experienced by non-political prisoners.
16. Mr Iqbal also raised, but did not pursue, a new ground (in respect of which there had been no application for permission) challenging the conclusions on the spelling of the Court Summons.
17. In reply Mr Tufan took us to the CPIN on political prisoners which he said simply did not deal with the situation of prisoners in general. He noted that the relevant conclusion challenged (in respect of the conditions of prisons) was in effect a secondary one as the Judge had rejected the appellant’s primary case that he had been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. The panel pointed out that the judge had in fact accepted at [55] that the appellant would or might face prosecution, and that this was the basis on which the Judge considered whether prison conditions were such as to give rise to an Article 3 ECHR breach. Mr Tufan accepted that this was the case.
18. Ultimately Mr Tufan’s case was that the FTTJ had reached a wholly sustainable conclusion on the lack of available relevant evidence. There was in fact no relevant evidence before the Tribunal. As in the Rule 24 response, he relied on Lata (FtT: principal controversial issues) India [2023] UKUT 163 (IAC).
19. In response Mr Iqbal accepted in terms that the CPIN concerned political prisoners, and that there was no evidence before the Judge as to how prisoners who were not political dissidents would be treated. He was not suggesting that the fate of political dissidents would be the same as that of ‘ordinary’ prisoners. However he submitted that the FTT was required to consider the matter with care, and that the conclusion at [57] was not careful.
Findings and reasons
20. Despite Mr Iqbal’s spirited submissions we have no hesitation in concluding that the grounds do not disclose an error of law.
21. The First-tier Tribunal Judge concluded at [57] that:
“… There is nothing before me [to show] that the appellant will face treatment on return to Egypt that would give rise to a grant of humanitarian protection. The CPIN on which the appellant relies does not provide me with evidence that prison conditions in Egypt for someone guilty of issuing dud cheques would [place them] at substantial risk of suffering serious harm or treatment contrary to Articles 2 or 3 ECHR…”
22. In HA (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKSC 22 Lord Hamblen held at [72]:
“It is well established that judicial caution and restraint is required when considering whether to set aside a decision of a specialist fact finding tribunal. In particular:
(i) They alone are the judges of the facts. Their decisions should be respected unless it is quite clear that they have misdirected themselves in law. It is probable that in understanding and applying the law in their specialised field the tribunal will have got it right. Appellate courts should not rush to find misdirections simply because they might have reached a different conclusion on the facts or expressed themselves differently - see AH (Sudan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2007] UKHL 49; [2008] AC 678 per Baroness Hale of Richmond at para 30.
(ii) Where a relevant point is not expressly mentioned by the tribunal, the court should be slow to infer that it has not been taken into account - see MA (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] UKSC 49; [2011] 2 All ER 65 at para 45 per Sir John Dyson.
(iii) When it comes to the reasons given by the tribunal, the court should exercise judicial restraint and should not assume that the tribunal misdirected itself just because not every step in its reasoning is fully set out - see R (Jones) v First-tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber) [2013] UKSC 19; [2013] 2 AC 48 at para 25 per Lord Hope.”
23. The question for us is whether the FTTJ was entitled to reach the conclusion that the CPIN did not provide evidence that prison conditions for this appellant would be such, were he convicted, as to give rise to a risk of ill-treatment contrary to the Convention, and so an entitlement to humanitarian protection.
24. It is not the case, as the grounds originally suggested, that the FTTJ failed to consider relevant evidence; rather the question for us is whether his conclusion on that evidence was Wednesbury unreasonable. It is a high bar.
25. In our view, Mr Iqbal was right to accept that there was no evidence before the Tribunal directly bearing on prison conditions for non-political prisoners in Egypt. However, that is fatal to his case. The conclusion of the FTTJ was not only open to him but plainly correct.
26. We cannot accept that the only rational approach was for the FTTJ to infer from the treatment of political dissidents in Egyptian prisons that the treatment of this appellant, facing a sentence for “issuing dud cheques”, would be the same. Indeed, the CPIN says flatly the opposite, making it clear at e.g. 16.1 that political detainees are subjected to “particularly harsh” conditions. While Mr Iqbal is right to say that the CPIN on opposition to the Egyptian state is not strictly inconsistent with the general conditions being in breach of Article 3 ECHR, neither does it say that they are.
27. We cannot moreover accept the suggestion that the Judge, in treating the evidence that on its face was not addressing the general position of prisoners in Egypt, as not addressing that issue, was in some way wrongly “compartmentalising” the evidence.
28. Nor can we accept that it was for the respondent to adduce evidence of the conditions in Egyptian prisons. There is not, contrary to Mr Iqbal’s submissions, a duty of candour in statutory appeals (see Nimo (appeals: duty of disclosure: Ghana) [2020] UKUT 88 (IAC) at [23]). It was for the appellant to adduce evidence in support of his case, and the FTTJ’s conclusion that he had not done so on this issue cannot be faulted.
29. It follows that Ground 5 is not made out. The other grounds were not pursued. The appeal must therefore be dismissed.
Notice of decision
The decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Clarke of 28 January 2025 did not involve the making of an error of law. The appellant’s appeal is dismissed.

Greg Ó Ceallaigh KC
Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

22nd September 2025