Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-002773
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/52586/2024
LP/11623/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 23rd of June 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE JARVIS

Between

MC
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr M. West, Counsel instructed by Gordon & Thompson Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr S. Walker, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 11 June 2026

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 has appealed to this Tribunal against the decision of the First-tier Tr+ibunal promulgated on 19 April 2025; permission was granted by the Upper Tribunal on 23 July 2025.
Relevant background
2. The Appellant claims to have been a member of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (“the RRP”) in Nepal and that he claimed asylum in this country in October 2021 because of adverse interest from the Nepalese authorities relating to his previous political activity.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal
3. In the decision, the First-tier Tribunal Judge ultimately concluded that the Appellant had not given credible evidence about his alleged difficulties in Nepal. In particular, at §26 of the judgment, the Judge observed that the Appellant had said during his oral evidence (as well as in his screening interview) that he had not had a difficulties in Nepal prior to leaving yet this was inconsistent with his witness statement evidence in which he had claimed to have been physically assaulted and his wife threatened with sexual violence.
4. The Judge also pointed out at §30 that the Appellant had not provided the original of his National Democratic Party (“NDP”) card from April 2020 and had claimed that his 2017 NDP card had been destroyed which was contradicted by the fact that there was an image of the card at page 16 of the bundle.
5. The Judge further concluded that it was incredible that the Appellant would have been able to travel to the United Kingdom if he was of adverse interest to the authorities and ultimately concluded that the Appellant had not given a truthful account of his material history in Nepal at §34.
6. The Judge rejected the Appellant’s credibility and dismissed his international protection and human rights appeals.
The error of law hearing
7. I note that prior to this hearing there was a listening appointment on 12 May 2026 at which both Mr West and Ms Isherwood (on behalf of the Respondent) attended to listen to the audio record of proceedings of the First-tier Tribunal hearing. The need for this listening appointment arose partly because of observations made by the First-tier Tribunal about interruptions during cross-examination and the Appellant’s challenge to that in the grounds of appeal.
8. I have had sight of Ms Isherwood’s rule 24 response (dated 5 August 2025) and the Presenting Officer’s record of proceedings from the First-tier Tribunal hearing which was also submitted by Ms Isherwood.
9. In the rule 24 response the Respondent accepted (at paragraph 5) that the Presenting Officer’s record of proceedings corresponded with that stated in the grounds, with particular reliance upon page 4 of 8 of the Presenting Officer’s record.
10. Preliminarily, I asked Mr Walker if that concession constituted an acceptance that Mr West’s record of the hearing as quoted in the grounds of appeal was accurate.
11. Mr Walker submitted that the rule 24 was not as clear as it could have been and ultimately submitted that he was not in a position to dispute Mr West’s record as he had not been privy to the listening appointment in May 2026.
12. Mr West then relied upon his renewed grounds to the Upper Tribunal and emphasised the key points arising from the two general grounds of appeal.
13. In response, Mr Walker conceded that the Judge had made a material factual mistake in his consideration of the Appellant’s evidence about the 2017 membership card. Mr Walker accepted Mr West’s note of the evidence quoted by the Appellant at paragraph 11 of the renewed grounds to the Upper Tribunal and submitted that the Judge had failed to properly engage with the Appellant’s explanation that he was able to provide a scan of the 2017 membership card because he had taken a picture of the card on an old mobile phone and the image had been obtained from that device.
14. I further note that there was no dispute by Mr Walker to paragraph 32 of the grounds in which the Appellant asserts that the Judge’s conclusion at §30 (that it was not credible that the authorities would have failed to take the old mobile phone when they raided the house thereby undermining his claim to have been able to extract an image of the 2017 membership card from that phone), is vitiated by material error on the basis that this point was not put to the Appellant during the hearing as should have been done for procedural fairness.
15. I remind myself that Mr Isherwood did not seek to contest the assertion that the Appellant had not been asked about this point either by reference to the Presenting Officer’s record of proceedings or as a result of the listening appointment in May.
16. On the basis of Mr Walker’s concession, I accepted that the First-tier Tribunal materially erred in its overall assessment of the Appellant’s evidence and that there was no need to consider other aspects of the Appellant’s grounds. I consider that the error is material, despite the numerous other adverse credibility points detailed by the Judge, on the basis that nonetheless it could have made a material difference to the outcome, applying IA (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2007] EWCA Civ 323 at §15.

Notice of Decision
17. I therefore decided that the decision of the First-tier Tribunal should be set aside in its entirety as per section 12(2)(a) of the Tribunal’s, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007.
18. In light of my conclusion that the decision should be set aside in its entirety I concluded that the appeal should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for full fact finding. In coming to that conclusion I have applied Majera v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 1597 and have taken into account my conclusion that the Appellant has been subject to some procedural unfairness and by reference to the materially different appeal rights between the First-tier and the Upper Tribunal.
19. The appeal should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard by a judge other than the Judge who dismissed the appeal on 19 April 2025.

I Jarvis

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

16 June 2026