Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002788

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/65267/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 11th November 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE SEELHOFF

Between

SK
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Thrower Solicitor, Brodie Jackson Cantor
For the Respondent: Ms Isherwood, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House by Video Link on 29 October 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 against a decision of a First-tier Tribunal Judge (‘The Judge’) dated the 5th April 2025 in which the Judge dismissed the Appellant’s appeal against the refusal of his Protection Claim issued on the 5th December 2023.
Background
2. The Appellant is an ethnic Kurd and a national of Iraq and claimed asylum on the basis that he had a relationship with a girl in Iraq.
3. In refusing the claim the Judge appears to have proceeded on the basis that the girl with whom he had an affair was related to him [26] and that the objective evidence showed that men who engage in extra martial affairs are not at risk from their “own” families and that accordingly the Appellant was not at risk.
4. Permission to appeal was sought and refused by a First-tier Tribunal Judge on the 12th June 2025 but permission was then granted by an Upper Tribunal Judge on all grounds on the 21st July 2025.
5. Ground 1 asserts that procedural unfairness flows from the fact that the Judge mistakenly believed that the Appellant was related to the girl, and that as a consequence has only referred to the section of the Country Policy Information that describes the risk that a man who had such a relationship would face from his own family and not that he would face from the girl’s family.
6. Ground 2 notes that the judge failed to consider the evidence in the round but instead considered the Appellant’s credibility in isolation from that of a supporting witness and used that finding to justify rejecting the witness’s evidence [27]. Ground 3 challenges what are essentially plausibility findings in terms of the Appellant’s lack of knowledge about events after he fled and Ground 4 challenges findings on ID documents and returnability.
The Hearing
7. At the outset Ms Isherwood indicated that she was in difficulty in respect of ground 1 as it did appear the judge had fallen into error. Ms Isherwood indicated that she had sought instructions and asked for a rule 24 response to be prepared but that there had not been time to do so.
8. In light of the concession I invited Mr Thrower to expand briefly on his grounds and Ms Isherwood confirmed that she did not have anything to say to resist grounds 1 and 2 in particular.
9. The parties both agreed that the case ought to be remitted to the First-tier to be decided afresh with no findings preserved.
Analysis
10. The judge erroneously stated at [26] that the Appellant claimed to be at risk as a;
“male for having involved himself in an affair with a girl to whom he was related” [26]
11. The Appellant has never claimed to have been related to the girl with whom he claimed to have had an affair.
12. There is a possibility that this was an unintended error on the part of the Judge but he went on to make the following observation on the evidence;
“… it is noteworthy that the CPIN further states that Iraq, including the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), is a patriarchal society and in general, a male who has engaged in a premarital or extramarital relationship with a female is not at risk of serious harm or persecution from his own family. This is because a male who has engaged in a premarital or extramarital relationship with a female is not perceived to have stained the honour of the male or his family…”
13. The Judge did not comment on potential risk from the girl’s family or consider evidence on that issue which further indicates that he saw the families as one and the same.
14. As the Respondent conceded this appears to be a serious error of fact which has led to the judge then taking too narrow a view of the background evidence, and which also provides the context in which he assessed credibility and plausibility of the account as a whole.
15. I am also satisfied that ground 2 was made out in that the adverse credibility finding in respect of the Appellant was used to dismiss a witness’s evidence, rather than the witness evidence being considered as part of a holistic credibility assessment contrary to the principles in Mibanga [2005] EWCA Civ 367.
16. Given the concession as to the materiality of the first two errors it is not necessary to address grounds 3 and 4 in such detail.

Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier contains material errors of law and is set aside in full.
The decision is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be remade by another judge.

Adrian Seelhoff

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

6th November 2025