Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002823

First-tier Tribunal Nos: PA/57777/2023
LP/09736/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 2nd of October 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE ZUCKER

Between

MR
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms E Etas of Counsel instructed by Logan Kingsley Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms S McKenzie, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 25th 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
1. The Appellant is a national of Iran of Kurdish ethnicity who entered the United Kingdom on 20th July 2021. On 22nd July 2021 he made application for international protection as a refugee, which application was refused on 26th September 2023. He appealed and on 7th February 2025 his appeal was heard and on 4th April 2025 dismissed by the First-tier Tribunal.
2. The basis of his claim was that he had been seen by Etela’at who had created an ambush as he was smuggling two USBs from Iraq into Iran on the instructions of his father whom he claims worked for the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI). In his haste to escape he claims to have left his rucksack and coat containing the flash drives and his birth certificate behind. One of his companions, S, was shot. He fled the scene with another companion, G, claiming that arrangements were made by an uncle to get him out of Iran. He then travelled across Turkey before eventually arriving in France from where he crossed to the United Kingdom with the help of smugglers in a dinghy.
3. Having considered the various credibility points taken against the Appellant the judge found a particular aspect of the Appellant’s claim so internally inconsistent that it undermined the Appellant’s credibility altogether. On that basis the judge also did not accept that the Appellant’s profile was such that any Facebook account which might put him at risk with respect to his sur place activities would come to the attention of the Iranian authorities, finding that the sur place activities were undertaken only with a view to bolstering his claim.
4. Not content with the decision, by Notice dated 12th April 2025 the Appellant sought permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal. In summary the Appellant contended that the judge:
(i) found that the Appellant had fabricated his account based on his (that is the Appellant’s) knowledge of the smuggling trade rather than actually having participated without putting the same to the Appellant;
(ii) failed to analyse the sur place claim.
5. At first instance permission to appeal was refused on the basis that the grounds amounted to no more than a disagreement with findings of fact open to the judge. However, on a renewed application to the Upper Tribunal, dated 24th June 2025, based upon the same grounds permission was granted as follows:
“Ground 1: It is arguably irrational and/or procedurally unfair for the judge to find that ‘the Appellant’s place of origin in Iran and knowledge of the kolbar trade makes it likely he has patterned his claim after the sort of things that happen to kolbars referred to in the CPIN’.
Ground 2: It is arguable that the judge failed to consider the evidence relied on in support of the Appellant’s sur place political activity and/or whether the Appellant would be at risk on account of that activity notwithstanding the judge’s finding that it had been undertaken to bolster his claim. It is arguable that the judge erred in his approach to the nature of investigation on return to Iran as outlined in HB (Kurds) Iran [2018] UKUT 00430 (IAC) by failing to consider the Appellant’s risk factors cumulatively”.

The Hearing
6. There was nothing for me to determine in this case because the Grounds of Appeal were conceded, quite properly in my judgment, by Ms McKenzie. Looking at the first ground in paragraph 52 of the decision it was observed by Ms McKenzie, and again I agree, that nowhere in the decision was it possible to determine how the judge arrived at that paragraph in which he said, “The Appellant’s place of origin in Iran and knowledge of the Kolbar trade makes it likely that he has patterned his claim after the sort of things that happen to Kolbars referred to in the CPIN ...”.
7. As to the sur place activities parts of the documentation had not been considered, nor was consideration given to the Appellant’s illegal exit from Iran, nor was it clear whether at paragraph 52, and more generally, whether the judge was considering the credibility of the Appellant or the plausibility more generally. Still further the judge had not considered the whole of the evidence but only the background material, that is to say the evidence of the Appellant; the subjective evidence provided by him.
8. As to the assertion that with respect to the Appellant’s sur place activities he had acted as he had in order to bolster his claim, it is trite law that that makes no difference whatsoever, the issue is whether or not the Appellant is at risk and the lead case on that is the case of Danian -v- SSHD [2000] IAR 96.
9. For all these reasons therefore the Secretary of State, in agreement with the Appellant’s Counsel, Ms Etas, asked that this matter be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard afresh before a judge other than Judge Gillespie.
Decision
By consent the appeal to the Upper Tribunal is allowed. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside and remitted to Taylor House to be heard afresh by a judge other than Judge Gillespie. A Sorani Kurdish interpreter is required. The hearing should be listed for three hours not before 1st December 2025.

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

26 September 2025