Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002856

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/66273/2023
LP/09581/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 29th December 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BURNETT

Between

R.H.
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr M McGarvey
For the Respondent: Mr A McVeety.

Heard at Field House on 11 November 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant is granted anonymity. I have maintained the anonymity order as the appellant has made a protection claim.

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. This is the appellant’s appeal against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (FtT) dated 11 March 2025, which was an appeal from the decision of the respondent refusing his protection claim.
Background

2. The appellant is from Namibia. He claimed a risk of persecution on the basis that he is a gay man and that he was being forced by his family into an arranged marriage. The appellant feared state and non state actors.

3. The appellant had provided an appeal skeleton argument (ASA) for the appeal which set out at paras 1, and 11 to 14 the appellant’s claim regarding forced marriage. The ASA also set out arguments regarding sufficiency of protection and internal relocation at paragraphs 17 to 19.

4. The appellant provided a witness statement setting out his claims and response to the reasons why his claim had been refused. The statement is dated 12 July 2024. In that statement the appellant stated he feared his father and uncles and the wider community (see paragraph 24) He states was not locked in a room but was watched constantly ( para 2(d)). He was kept in the village for around 3-4 weeks (see para 17).

Decision of the FtT.

5. The FtT dismissed the appellant’s appeal finding that the appellant had not established that he is a gay man, and finding no risk to the appellant in Namibia. The FtT rejected the credibility of the appellant’s claims.

Grounds of appeal

6. The grounds of appeal are brief and can be summarised thus, they assert that the judge failed to make a finding regarding the appellant’s claim that he would be at risk due to a forced marriage.

Permission to appeal.

7. Permission to appeal was granted by a judge of the FtT. The grant of permission was not limited.

Respondent’s response.

8. I should note at this juncture that the respondent provided a rule 24 response to the grounds of appeal and the permission grant. It is dated 3 July 2025 and seeks to up hold the decision of the FtT. The respondent asserts that the sexuality claim and forced marriage issues were not separate heads of claim but were intertwined such that because the sexuality claim was dismissed, the forced marriage claim fell away as well.

Hearings and submissions

9. I heard submissions from the parties via a video link. I will refer to these as far as is necessary is setting out my decision.

Analysis and conclusions.

10. Relatively recent authority (Ullah v SSHD [2024]EWCA Civ 201, Yalcin v SSHD [2024] EWCA Civ 74, and Chowdhury v SSHD [2025] EWCA Civ 36) has emphasised that the Upper Tribunal should not rush to find an error of law simply because they would have expressed themselves differently from the First-Tier Tribunal, that the Upper Tribunal should be slow to infer that a point had not been taken into account even if not expressly mentioned, and that judicial restraint should be exercised even though not every step in the reasoning was fully set out, as the issues might be set out by inference. I have borne those principles in mind.

11. I also had in mind the Court of Appeal’s dicta in Volpi v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464 that it is not the role of an appellate court to come to its own conclusions on the evidence before the Judge. It is essential that there is appropriate judicial restraint before interfering with the decision of the expert first instance judge.

12. Mr McGarvey sought to extend the ambit of his appeal grounds, attempting to raise credibility issues and that the appellant had been subjected to past persecution. There had been no application to extend the grounds of appeal and no notice was given, before submissions were made. I confined Mr McGarvey to the grant of permission and the grounds of appeal put forward. This related solely to what is described as the second head of claim, the issue of risk of the appellant being subjected to a forced marriage or being harmed by his uncles or father.

13. In submission Mr McGarvey stated that the appellant had been subjected to past persecution. This is not the finding of the FtT. The FtT found the appellant not to be a credible witness [19] to [31]. The judge set out the appellant’s claims at [32] and concluded that the appellant had not been subjected to any ill treatment during his time he spent at a house for 3-4 weeks. The judge did not accept that there was past persecution or any ill treatment of the appellant. This finding is challenged at paragraph 7 of the grounds. However the judge gave adequate reasons for the rejection of the appellant’s credibility and it is noted that other than being watched at the property, the appellant had not stated he was subjected to any ill treatment. The judge recorded this evidence and made a clear finding which was open to the judge on the evidence.

14. The appellant had stated that his father harboured ill-feelings towards him. This is recorded by the judge [32]. The judge stated that it was plausible that the appellant was expected to marry his cousin. The judge accepted that the appellant had spent time in a property for not agreeing to a marriage. The judge did not accept the reasons the appellant gave for leaving Namibia [33].

15. The appellant’s claims were that he did not want to marry his cousin due to his sexuality. The judge rejected the sexuality of the appellant. The judge rejected that the appellant had been subjected to ill treatment in the past [41]. The judge concluded that there was no risk to the appellant and the appellant had not fled due to any need to flee a risk associated with his sexuality [33] and [41].

16. I should also note that Mr McGavrey could not point the Tribunal to any evidence which was before the First-tier Tribunal which demonstrated that the appellant would be unable to seek protection from the authorities from being forced into a marriage. McGarvey could not point to any material to demonstrate that if there was a risk from the appellant’s family, he would be unable to relocate. I should note that the judge concluded that the appellant’s father did not have any power or influence within the state [34].

17. I conclude that the grounds of appeal do not establish a material error of law in the decision.

18. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of a material error of law. The appeal is therefore dismissed and the decision of the First-tier Tribunal shall stand.

Notice of Decision
The appeal is dismissed.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal shall stand.

Iain Burnett

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

15 December 2025