Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002527

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/53931/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 16th January 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LEWIS

Between

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Appellant
and

E.P.
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms H Gilmour, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer
For the Respondent: Mr G Brown instructed by WTB Solicitors

Heard at Field House on 10 October 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the Respondent EP (and/or any member of her family, expert, witness or other person the Tribunal considers should not be identified) 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 Respondent EP (and/or other person). Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. This is an appeal against a decision of First Tier Tribunal Judge Ruck promulgated on 5 April 2025 allowing the appeal of EP against a decision of the Secretary of State for the Home Department dated 16 June 2023 refusing a protection claim.
2. Although before me the Secretary of State is the appellant and EP is the respondent, for the sake of consistency with the proceedings before the First-tier Tribunal I shall hereafter refer to the Secretary of State as the ‘Respondent’ and EP as the ‘Appellant’.
3. The Appellant is a citizen of Albania born on 28 August 2000.
4. The Appellant claims to have left Albania on 17 November 2019 by bus. She arrived in the UK on 2 December 2019 in the company of her mother and two siblings (then aged 17 and 14). The Appellant made a claim for protection on arrival, and a screening interview was conducted on the same date.
5. Amongst other things, the Appellant claimed to have been a victim of modern slavery – details of which are set out in the documents on file, and see further below. On 6 December 2019 she received a favourable ‘reasonable grounds’ decision from the National Referral Mechanism. On 7 July 2022 the NRM made a favourable ‘conclusive grounds’ decision. In consequence, on 24 March 2023, the Appellant was granted discretionary leave to remain. Nonetheless, her application for protection was refused for reasons set out in a ‘reasons for refusal’ letter dated 16 June 2023.
6. It is convenient to note at this juncture the references that were made to the Appellant’s mother and siblings in the course of the Appellant’s own application for protection. In a Preliminary Information Questionnaire dated 24 March 2021 it was stated “Mother and two younger siblings have their own claim for asylum”. In the substantive asylum interview conducted on 31 December 2021 the same information was provided in response to question 10, and there was a brief discussion regarding the progress of those claims – the interview officer dating that the Home Office had their details. No further reference to the cases all circumstances of the Appellant’s mother and siblings is identifiable in either the Respondents bundle before the First-tier Tribunal, or the Respondent’s Review.
7. The Appellant appealed the refusal of her protection claim to the IAC.
8. It was the Appellant’s case that she had been sexually exploited in Albania and feared being further exploited and possibly trafficked outside Albania. Whilst the Respondent accepted the Appellant’s history in light of the NRM’s ‘conclusive grounds’ decision, the appeal was resisted on arguments of the availability of state protection and/or internal relocation.
9. The First-tier Tribunal Judge found that if the Appellant were to be returned to her home area in Albania, she would be at risk of being re-trafficked by the agent of persecution she feared (see Decision at paragraph 17-23); it was not accepted that there was sufficiency of state protection (paragraph 24-31), or that internal relocation was a viable option (paragraph 32-45). The appeal was allowed accordingly.
10. The Respondent applied for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal. This was refused in the first instance by First-tier Tribunal Judge Aziz on 20 May 2025. However, a renewed application was granted by Upper Tribunal Judge Grey on 10 July 2025.
11. The renewed application for permission to appeal repeated the original grounds of challenge, and additionally argued that there had been a procedural irregularity in the appeal not having been stay in order to be linked with the appeals of the Appellant’s mother and siblings. In substance, this submission picks up on a observation of Judge Aziz in refusing permission to appeal that “it is arguable that these appeals ought to have been linked”.
12. I do not for a moment accept that Judge Aziz was in any way identifying an arguable error of law in this regard. More particularly, I do not accept that I should find such an error pursuant to the Respondent’s renewed grounds. In particular it is to be noted that there was no application by either party before the First-tier Tribunal to link the appeals. The Respondent had all the relevant information before her, and it was open to her to make an application at any point, including at the hearing before Judge Ruck.
13. It is, of course, to be acknowledged that there is a power under the Procedure Rules (see in particular rule 4(3)(b)) to link appeals that raise common issues. I also noted the Practice Direction of 1 November 2024 at paragraph 4.1 in respect of linking appeals, drawn to my attention by Ms Gilmour, which seemingly imposes a requirement upon an appellant to draw to the attention of the Tribunal the existence of another appeal based on the same facts “so that the Tribunal can consider whether the appeal should be linked”.
14. Even if it might be said that the Appellant and her representatives were at fault in not drawing the existence of any other appeals to the attention of the First-tier Tribunal, bearing in mind the absence of any application to stay the instant appeal to await any decision in the applications of the family members, or alternatively, if such decisions had already been made, to link the instant appeal with any other pending appeals, I can see no basis for criticising the conduct of the First-tier Tribunal Judge in proceeding with the appeal as listed before him - also bearing in mind the duty to comply with the overriding objective in avoiding delay so far as compatible with proper consideration of the issues.
15. It is be noted that the Judge gave express consideration to the possibility of the Appellant’s family members returning to Albania with her: see paragraph 40, and see further below. As such, I am not persuaded that the failure to link the appeal prevented proper consideration of the issues.
16. In my judgement, even if there were some substance to the suggestion that there was a procedural error in the Tribunal failing of its own motion to seek to link the Appellant’s appeal, any such procedural irregularity was ultimately immaterial to the outcome.
17. In this context and generally, it is to be noted that the principal thrust of the Respondent’s argument is that the Judge was in error in evaluating the Appellant’s case on the basis that she would be returning to Albania as a lone female. In this context the Respondent seizes upon the Judge’s reference at paragraph 40 to the circumstance that the Appellant’s mother and siblings “still remain in the UK at this time”. This observation arises subsequent to the Judge noting the Respondent’s reliance upon TD and AD, which sets out guidance, amongst other things, with regard to evaluating available support networks, and the (unchallenged) rejection that the country information justified departure from such guidance: see paragraph 39. In the preliminary parts of paragraph 40 the Judge refers to the Appellant’s family’s lack of significant social economic status, and the Appellant’s absence of contact with the family still in Albania. Significantly, even having observed that the mother and siblings are in the UK, the Judge goes on to consider the matter in the alternative – “Even if her family were to return to Albania with her…”.
18. Moreover, the Judge’s evaluation of the availability, or unavailability, of a suitable support network, and the Appellant’s likely circumstances on return, is also informed by the analysis at paragraphs 41 and 42 in respect of the Appellant’s mental health as a person who has suffered physical, sexual, and psychological abuse at the hands of a serious criminal. Yet further, the Judge expressly addresses the Respondent’s submissions in respect of the Appellant’s level of education (paragraph 43). It seems to me that the Grounds do not begin to challenge the evaluation at paragraphs 41-43
19. Taking all these matters together, and with particular reference to the Grounds of challenge as pleaded, I make the following observations:
(i) The Respondent’s Grounds, in their premises, assert that the Secretary of State would return all family members together. This purported circumstance is cited in support of a submission that the Judge was “irrational” in considering the Appellant would be returned as a lone single woman (paragraph 1b). The difficulty with this is that it is not inevitable that the Appellant’s family members will be unsuccessful in their cases: even if those cases are based primarily upon the Appellant’s circumstances in terms of protection, there is no meaningful information as to what the family members circumstances in the UK might be and/or whether they have any other bases for remaining on either protection or human rights grounds.
(ii) In any event, and perhaps more particularly, this line of challenge does not address the fact that the Judge considered the case in the alternative – i.e. on the basis that the mother and siblings return with the Appellant.
(iii) Insofar as the Grounds seek to challenge the risk on return by reference to the possibility of the Appellant being detected by her previous persecutor and his associates, in my judgement the pleading (paragraph 1c) amounts to a disagreement without identifying an arguable error of law or misdirection.
(iv) Insofar as the Grounds seek to challenge the evaluation of internal relocation (paragraph 1d), the challenge is in part misplaced (the finding in respect of internal relocation was not premised on a risk of exploitation and trafficking at such locations), and otherwise essentially amounts to a factual dispute as to the Appellant’s ability to fend for herself in light of her mental health difficulties. No error of law is disclosed.
(v) Any argument in respect of a failure to link the appeal is essentially immaterial in circumstances where the possibility of the Appellant returning to Albania in the company of her mother and siblings was expressly factored into the analysis by the First-tier Tribunal Judge.
20. The Respondent’s challenge fails accordingly.

Notice of Decision
21. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal contained no material error of law; the Respondent’s challenge herein fails; the Decision of the First-tier Tribunal stands.
22. The Appellant’s appeal remains allowed.

I. Lewis
Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
12 January 2026