Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002918

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/68037/2023
LP/13347/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 6 October 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BLUNDELL

Between

AK
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Zeeshan Raza, instructed by Morgan Lane Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr Mahdi Parvar, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 25 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. This order is made in light of the fact that the appellant is an asylum seeker. The need to protect his safety outweighs the presumption in favour of open justice.

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant appeals with the permission of First-tier Tribunal Judge Saffer against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Moxon. By a decision which was issued to the parties on 5 May 2025, Judge Moxon dismissed the appellant’s appeal against the respondent’s refusal of his protection and human rights claims.

Background

2. The appellant is a Pakistani national who was born in 1986. He arrived in the United Kingdom in 2011, holding entry clearance as a student which expired on 23 December 2012.

3. The appellant made an application for a Residence Card as the spouse of an EEA national in October 2012, but that application was refused because the respondent concluded that the marriage was one of convenience. His appeal against that decision was dismissed and permission to appeal to this tribunal was refused, with the appellant exhausting his appeal rights in September 2013.

4. The appellant made further submissions in November 2013, but these were refused in March 2014 and efforts were made to remove him. An application for judicial review was refused in December 2014. The appellant then made a human rights application in March 2015 but that was refused as clearly unfounded and further attempts were made to remove him, followed by a further application for judicial review in February 2016.

5. Later that month, the appellant claimed asylum. He had a screening interview on 22 February 2016. There was a substantive interview on 2 March 2016. In the latter interview, the appellant stated that he was at risk in Pakistan owing to a long-running feud with another family (the Khans) and because he was sought by the Jamaat E Islami Party and the Pakistani Taliban because of his father’s involvement with the Pakistan People’s Party. Amongst other things, he stated that a First Information Report containing false allegations had been made against him and that a campaign had been waged against him and his father, including one incident in which their home was damaged by explosives planted by the Taliban. The appellant also stated that he was at risk from his own family because he had refused to marry the woman they had selected for him by way of arranged marriage.

6. Further representations were made and further evidence was submitted in support of the appellant’s claim but it was not until 12 December 2023 that the respondent reached a decision.

7. In her decision, the respondent accepted that the appellant was in fear of the opposing family but did not accept that the appellant’s own family would force him to marry against his wishes. The respondent also doubted the appellant’s assertion that he was in fear of the Taliban because he had not given a consistent account and because his assertions were considered to be vague and lacking in detail. The respondent noted that the appellant had only claimed asylum after other options had proved unsuccessful. She considered that the appellant could obtain a sufficiency of protection from those he supposedly feared, or that he could avoid any such threat by relocating internally.

8. The respondent noted that the appellant had claimed to be in a relationship with a Hungarian national he had met in 2019. The respondent did not accept that the relationship was genuine or subsisting. She did not accept that the appellant’s removal would be in breach of Article 8 ECHR, whether by reference to the claimed relationship or otherwise.

The Appeal to the First-tier Tribunal

9. The judge heard the appeal at Taylor House on 1 May 2025. The appellant was represented by Ms Victor-Mazeli of counsel. The respondent was represented by a Presenting Officer. Counsel explained at the start of the hearing that the appellant’s cousin had married another man, and that he no longer sought to argue that he was in fear of his own family. He maintained his fear of the Khan family and of the Taliban, however. The judge then heard oral evidence from the appellant and the sponsor and submissions from the advocates before reserving his decision.

10. The judge’s reserved decision was issued on 5 May 2025. Having set out the background and the evidence, the judge made his findings of fact from [13] onwards. The judge noted that the appellant’s fear of the Khan family had been accepted by the respondent and that the claim to fear the Taliban was plausible when set against the background evidence. The judge did not accept the latter aspect of the appellant’s claim to be credible, however. He gave the following reasons for that conclusion.

11. Firstly, the judge was concerned that the appellant had made no reference to any fear of the Taliban in his screening interview. He was only required to give brief answers but the judge considered the omission to be a significant one which could not be explained either by an arduous journey or by an inability to speak English: [16]. The judge did not accept the appellant’s assertion that he had in fact mentioned the Taliban in his screening interview; there had been no attempt to correct the record and there was no reason for his answers to have been recorded incorrectly: [17].

12. Secondly, the judge noted that the appellant had continued to add embellishment to his account, having stated in his witness statement for the first time that four relatives including his mother had been killed by a politically motivated suicide bombing in 2010. The judge considered there to be no adequate explanation for the appellant’s failure to mention that in interview: [18].

13. Thirdly, the judge attached weight to the appellant’s poor immigration history, having overstayed for several years and contracted a sham marriage with an EEA national who had been deported on that account: [19] and [25].

14. Fourthly, the judge noted that the appellant had failed to provide copies of a First Information Report in which he was supposedly accused of murder, despite stating at interview that he would do so: [20]. He rejected the claim that the appellant had provided that document to the Home Office in 2016 and he considered that claim to be a misleading one.

15. Fifthly, the appellant relied on a number of photographs which were said to show his father’s political activities, but the source of those photographs had not been established. The appellant said that they were from his Facebook account but there was no evidence of that: [21]. Having directed himself to TK (Burundi) v SSHD [2009] EWCA Civ 40 and MAH (Egypt) v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 216, the judge considered that he was entitled to draw on the absence of evidence which would have been available to the appellant.

16. The judge concluded that there was a sufficiency of protection against the Khan family and he did not accept that they had any connection with the Taliban: [27]-[28]. He considered that the appellant could in any event relocate within Pakistan so as to avoid any such threat: [29].

17. The judge dealt briefly with Article 3 ECHR and any Private Life claim within the Immigration Rules at [30]-[31] before turning to the appellant’s reliance on his relationship with the sponsor. He noted that the appellant could not meet the Immigration Status Requirement in the Rules at [32]. He was not satisfied that the appellant and the sponsor were in a genuine relationship because their evidence was inconsistent in relation to their financial affairs and because the evidence did not show genuine sharing of money: [34]. The judge declined to give weight the tenancy agreements for the years 2021 and 2023 because they had been produced only on the day of hearing and there was no explanation for the failure to provide them sooner: [35]. The judge considered that the photographs could have been staged and that there was no evidence of the relationship from third parties such as friends: [36] and [37]. He also took account of the appellant’s history of contracting a sham marriage: [38].

18. The judge was not satisfied in any event that there were insurmountable obstacles to the relationship continuing in Pakistan. Whilst the judge accepted that it would be difficult for the appellant’s wife to leave the UK, in which she had built a life, and move to a country with a different culture and language, he did not accept that the hardship would cross the threshold in paragraph EX2 of the Immigration Rules because the appellant could obtain employment and support them both. She could remain in contact with her friends from the UK and she had demonstrated an ability to adapt to a new culture and learn a new language. There was no medical evidence to show that her mental health was poor and there was no evidence about the Pakistani health system: [39].

19. The judge went on to consider the Article 8 ECHR claim outside the Rules. He noted that the sponsor could support any application to re-enter the UK: [41]. He accepted for the purposes of his proportionality assessment that the appellant had lived in the UK for many years and proceeded on the basis that the relationship was a genuine one. He considered that the appellant’s poor immigration history and other factors in s117B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 militated against him, whereas the serious delay in deciding his application for asylum militated in the opposite direction. Having considered all the circumstances, the judge concluded that the public interest nevertheless prevailed: [42]-[49].

20. So it was that the appeal was dismissed on all grounds.

The Appeal to the Upper Tribunal

21. The original grounds of appeal were settled by the appellant’s solicitors and they bear the name of the principal of the firm: Mr Rahat Ullah. The grounds of appeal which were uploaded to MyHMCTS, as considered by Judge Saffer, advanced the following arguments

22. The first ground was that the judge had left material matters out of account in deciding to attach weight to the appellant’s failure to mention the Taliban in his screening interview. The second ground was that the judge had misdirected himself in fact in concluding that the FIR was not before the Home Office. There were two grounds which were described as ground three.

23. The first ground three submitted that the judge had erred in “relying uncritically on generalised country guidance” when concluding that the appellant could relocate internally or obtain a sufficiency of protection. The ground also alleged that the judge had overlooked the FIRs in concluding as he did.

24. It is necessary to set out the second ground three in full. It is reproduced verbatim but I have added emphasis for reasons which I will explain in due course.

The learned IJ’s rejection of the Appellant’s relationship with his Hungarian partner was flawed and inadequately reasoned. Despite providing tenancy agreements, utility bills, photographs, and oral testimony, the Tribunal gave disproportionate weight to minor inconsistencies and disregarded the totality of the evidence that demonstrated a genuine and subsisting relationship since 2019.

Moreover, the IJ wrongly concluded that relocation would not be unduly harsh. The Sponsor is a Hungarian national settled in the UK and has mental health issues and the appellant is her only carer, she is not Pakistani, and would face significant cultural, social, and linguistic obstacles in relocating. The Tribunal erred by finding that those difficulties did not reach the threshold of "very serious hardship" as outlined in EX.1(b) of Appendix FM, and Agyarko [2017] UKSC 11.

She has any links or family in Pakistan, nor that she could integrate. She also faces obstacles based on gender, language, and safety concerns. These factors were not properly considered, and the separation will be long due to their circumstances in case of the appellant’s removal.

The Tribunal unfairly gave no weight to tenancy agreements and other documents submitted with the bundle, despite them being admitted without objection and directly relevant to the question of cohabitation. Late submission alone is not a lawful basis to discard otherwise probative evidence, particularly where they go to the heart of the Article 8 assessment (see Nye v SSHD [2021] EWCA Civ 148).

The IJ erred in placing excessive weight on the Appellant’s historical immigration
breaches (overstaying and a prior EEA relationship that was considered a sham) in its assessment of his current family life with his present partner.

This improperly taints the evaluation of a relationship which is entirely independent and ongoing for over five years. As held in R (Goudey) v SSHD [2012] EWHC 567 (Admin), historic immigration breaches cannot, without more, justify the rejection of a genuine present relationship. The fact that the Appellant and Sponsor have consistently cohabited and presented credible documentary and oral evidence should have been determinative under a correct application of Article 8 and EX.1. of the immigration rules.

25. Judge Saffer granted unrestricted permission to appeal, noting that it was arguable that the judge may have inaccurately or incompletely recorded the evidence.

26. In preparation for the hearing, the appellant’s solicitors filed (but apparently did not serve) a bundle of 609 pages, titled “Appellant’s Composite Bundle”. The first item in that bundle was the decision of Judge Moxon. The second item was described as “Grounds on which the appellant has been granted permission to appeal” but the grounds which appear at pp16-19 of that bundle are not identical to those which were considered by Judge Saffer. The final page states that the grounds are “Amended grounds of appeal relied upon”. The amended grounds differ in the following respects:

(i) There are no longer two ground threes. The first ground three has become part of ground two, but is otherwise identical.

(ii) The underlined parts of the second ground three (as above) have been removed.

Submissions

27. Mr Raza’s submissions were based on the grounds of appeal which were in the composite bundle. Like me, he had prepared the case using that bundle and had not been provided with the original grounds.

28. Mr Raza abandoned the second ground. He accepted that there was no evidence to show that the FIRs had been submitted to the Home Office. He pursued the first and third grounds only. In relation to the first ground, Mr Raza submitted that [16] of the judge’s decision was inadequately reasoned or irrational. Whilst it as accepted that the appellant had made no explicit reference to the Taliban in his screening interview, he had made detailed reference to that limb of his claim in the substantive interview, which had taken place only a few days later. In the circumstances, it was not open to the judge to attach the significance he did to the absence of the word “Taliban” from the screening interview.

29. Mr Raza advanced three submissions in relation to the judge’s consideration of Article 8 ECHR. He submitted that the adverse finding about the relationship was based on a ‘hyper critical’ evaluation of the evidence, and of the photos in particular. Nothing significant had emerged from cross-examination and the finding about transfer of funds was peculiar, given that the couple had lived together since 2019. There was no requirement in the rules or the authorities (such as Goudey (subsisting marriage – evidence) Sudan [2012] UKUT 00041(IAC)) which required there to be evidence from friends.

30. Mr Raza submitted that the judge’s assessment of ‘insurmountable obstacles’ under paragraph EX1 left material considerations out of account. The sponsor had been in the UK since 2012 and had made that choice before she met the appellant; there were stark differences between life in the UK and Pakistan; and the relationship had subsisted since 2019.

31. Mr Raza submitted that there were also errors of law in the judge’s assessment of the case outside the Rules. It was likely that removal would mean separation, since the appellant could not meet the Rules. And the judge had failed to consider that the relationship had formed during an extended period of delay.

32. For the Secretary of State, Mr Parvar noted that the grounds of appeal in the consolidated bundle appeared to differ from those which were before Judge Saffer. Mr Raza was not in a position to assist with that, and I directed that the appellant’s solicitors should provide an explanation for the amendment of the grounds and the erroneous description in the index to the bundle.

33. As for the merits of the grounds, Mr Parvar submitted that the judge had not erred in law. The appellant’s submissions were effectively an attempt to re-argue the case. The first ground of appeal required careful consideration. The Secretary of State had noted in the refusal letter that the appellant had not mentioned the Taliban in his screening interview. The point had been the subject of cross-examination, as recorded by the judge at [17]. The appellant’s witness statement and the skeleton argument before the FtT did not address the point at all, and the appellant’s response had been given for the first time in oral evidence. The judge was entitled to conclude that he had “tagged on” a fear of the Taliban in his substantive interview in order to bolster a weak claim.

34. There was an assertion in the grounds that the judge had failed to make allowance for the appellant’s mental health but that point had been noted by the judge at [11] and the medical records stopped at the year 2020.

35. As for ground three, Mr Parvar submitted that the judge had been entitled to disbelieve the relationship for the reasons he had given. The discrepancies, the absence of evidence and the late submission of the tenancy agreements were all rational considerations in the judge’ assessment. The judge had taken all relevant matters into account in considering EX1, and in assessing the case outside the Immigration Rules.

36. In reply, Mr Raza submitted that [34] of the decision provided an “insight into the judge’s mind” and that his approach throughout had been impermissibly critical of the evidence.

37. I reserved my decision at the end of the submissions.

Analysis

38. The appellant seeks to challenge findings of fact made by a specialist judge of the First-tier Tribunal. The judge had the benefit of seeing him and his claimed partner give evidence, and was immersed in the sea of evidence which was adduced by the parties. It is necessary in those circumstances to recall the need for a degree of restraint when examining the decision of the First-tier Tribunal. The relevant learning on that restraint was recently summarised by the Dingemans LJ (as he then was) at [55] of QY (Vietnam) v SSHD [2025] EWCA Civ 607:

It was also common ground that appeal courts should not interfere with judgments by trial judges just because the appellate court takes a different view of the facts. Findings of fact made by primary fact finders should not be set aside by the appellate court, unless the appellate court is bound to act. The trial judge should "give his reasons in sufficient detail to show the parties, and if need be [the appellate court] the principles on which he has acted and the reasons that have led him to his decision", see Fage at paragraph 115. There is no duty to refer to every argument of counsel, and the mere fact that a judge does not mention a piece of evidence does not mean that he overlooked it, see Volpi at paragraph 57. These principles apply to the FTT and Upper Tribunal, see generally Terzaghi v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 2017; [2020] Imm AR 461, particularly given that rights of appeal from the FTT to the Upper Tribunal are limited to errors of law. Findings of fact made by FTT judges should not readily be set aside.

39. The importance of approaching screening interviews with a degree of caution has been considered by this tribunal and the Court of Appeal.

40. In YL (Rely on SEF) China [2004] UKIAT 00145, at [19], the tribunal emphasised that the answers given at a screening interview might fairly be compared with answers given subsequently, but that such an interview “is not done to establish in detail the reasons a person gives to support her claim for asylum.” An inaccurate summary by the officer would, the tribunal said, be “excusable”, and the interview “may well be conducted when the asylum seeker is tired after a long journey”.

41. In JA (Afghanistan) v SSHD [2014] EWCA Civ 450; [2014] 1 WLR 4291, Moore-Bick LJ (with whom Gloster and Vos LJJ agreed) also emphasised that a degree of caution was required in considering an unrecorded screening interview. Moore-Bick LJ stated that it was necessary to bear in mind the age and background of the applicant, his limited command of English and the circumstances under which the interviews (screening and substantive) took place.

42. The judge did not refer to these dicta but he was not required to do so, and it is quite clear that he had the relevant principles in mind. He noted at [16] that the appellant had not mentioned the Taliban in his screening interview despite the fact that it had subsequently become the “central feature” of the claim. Immediately thereafter, he considered what the appellant said about that apparent omission. He considered the appellant’s claim that he had mentioned the point and that it had not been written down. He stated that the screening interview had not taken place soon after an “arduous journey”; that the appellant spoke English at the time; and that he was fit and well for the purposes of an interview. These are the very factors to which the judge was required to have regard as a result of YL (Rely on SEF) and JA (Afghanistan) v SSHD. The specialist judge therefore demonstrated clearly that he was aware of the principles which should have, and did, underpin this aspect of his assessment.

43. The screening interview is notable for the amount of detail given. At [2.1], for example, in response to a question about medical conditions, the appellant’s answer was:

Depression, anxiety, liver problems, mental problems. Healthcare aware, taking medication. I am scared especially [sic] the night time. When I hear the name of immigration I become afraid and my body starts to shake.

44. The answer given by the appellant to the question at [4.1] was similarly detailed. He was asked to explain briefly “ALL of the reasons why you cannot return to your home country” and his answer was as follows:

* Fear. Family enemy – Kamran Shah Dawood, Shah Muhammad Khan. Started in 2008 from my grandfather. They shot 5 children and 1 of them was my cousin. Land dispute.
* Fear of my own family because I got married in the UK and if I return, they will force me to marry someone else.

45. It was in this context that the judge was asked to consider the significance of the appellant failing to mention anything about the Taliban in his screening interview. He was certainly entitled to find that the omission was a significant one and that the appellant had sought to improve his prospects of success by introducing a wholly new element in answer to question 53 of his interview. He stated there, and in subsequent responses, that he was in fear of the Taliban but that claim was wholly absent from the screening interview.

46. Mr Raza submits that it was irrational for the judge to draw on the absence of reference to the Taliban in the screening interview because it was undertaken only a matter of days before the substantive interview. Chronologically, the premise of the submission is correct: the screening took place on 22 February 2016; the substantive interview took place on 2 March 2016. But I do not accept the conclusion of the submission. The judge was entitled to conclude that the appellant had decided within the eight days between the first and second interviews that his case was a weak one which required an additional ingredient. His reasoning process in this respect was undoubtedly adequate. Applying the litmus tests from English v Emery Reimbold & Strick Ltd [2002] 1 WLR 2409, the basis on which the judge acted is abundantly clear and it is quite clear why the appellant lost.

47. The first ground is not made out, therefore. Nor, for the following reasons, do I consider there to be any merit in the three concise submissions made by Mr Raza about the Article 8 analysis undertaken by the judge.

48. Mr Raza submitted that the judge’s analysis of the appellant’s relationship, or of the evidence which was said to demonstrate its existence, was “hyper critical”. He carefully avoided any suggestion that the analysis was irrational, and any such submission would certainly have been wrong. It was rational for the judge to find against the appellant’s relationship for the reasons I have summarised at [17] above. The appellant and the sponsor gave materially inconsistent evidence about their financial affairs, including which one of them was responsible for paying household bills and whether they saved. The tenancy agreements had been produced for the first time at the hearing, thereby reducing the weight which the judge was prepared to attach to them. There was limited evidence of contact between them. The judge took account of the evidence which militated in favour of the relationship, including the photographs and the joint names on the utility bills, but it was insufficient to outweigh the judge’s concerns.

49. Mr Raza submitted that the judge could not rationally hold a lack of contact against the appellant because he and the sponsor were said to have lived together since 2019, but cohabitation does not render electronic communication redundant. Couples need to ‘check in’ with each other, and to organise their daily lives, and it was the absence of evidence of telephone calls and text messages which the judge considered to be significant. Goudey (subsisting marriage – evidence) Sudan [2012] UKUT 00041(IAC), as cited by Mr Raza, underscores the potential importance of such evidence, and the judge was properly entitled to draw on its absence.

50. Mr Raza’s principal submission was that the judge had been “hyper-critical” in his evaluation of the evidence but that is a complaint about the weight which the judge attached to the various matters which militated for and against the relationship. Matters of weight are of course for the judge at first instance, subject only to a test of rationality. Given that none of the various facets of the judge’s analysis cannot be said to be irrational, it matters not that they might not have been the conclusions which another judge would have reached.

51. The finding that the relationship was not genuine and subsisting was a proper conclusion in law, and nothing said in the grounds or in Mr Raza’s submissions establishes the contrary.

52. Mr Raza also submitted that the judge had erred in law in reaching his alternative finding that there were no insurmountable obstacles to the couple relocating to Pakistan. It was said that he omitted material matters from his assessment. It is quite clear, however, that the judge was well aware of the sponsor’s length of residence in the UK, and he also took account of the fact that she was unfamiliar with Pakistan. Set against that, he weighed the appellant’s familiarity with his country of nationality and his ability to take employment and to support them both. The process of reasoning was one which took account of both the difficulties and the mitigating steps which could be taken to ameliorate those difficulties, which was (again) precisely what was required by the authorities: Lal v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 1925; [2020] 1 WLR 858, at [36].

53. Concern was expressed in the grounds about the sponsor’s mental health but there was no medical evidence in support of those assertions, as the judge noted at [39]. Mr Raza wisely opted to say nothing about that point.

54. In sum, the judge undertook a sufficiently detailed analysis of the factual question posed by the Immigration Rules. He gave more than adequate reasons for finding that there would not be insurmountable obstacle to the relationship continuing in Pakistan, and the conclusion he reached in that respect was one which was properly open to him on the evidence.

55. The appellant’s final submission was that the judge had erred in law in considering the case outside the Immigration Rules on the basis of Article 8 ECHR. As Mr Raza accepted, that ground cannot prosper if (as I have held) the judge was entitled to find against the appellant’s relationship. I will deal with the submissions in any event.

56. Mr Raza submitted that the judge had overlooked the fact that the appellant’s relationship was formed in 2019, at a time when he was waiting for the Secretary of State to make a decision on his pending asylum application. Mr Raza recalled what was said by Lord Bingham at [14]-[16] of EB (Kosovo) v SSHD [2008] UKHL 41; [2008] 3 WLR 178, and submitted that what was said at [15] was particularly apposite. I agree that Lord Bingham’s [15] was indeed relevant to the appellant’s case, and the lengthy delay in the respondent making a decision served to reduce the weight which could properly be afforded to immigration control.

57. Whilst the judge made no reference to EB (Kosovo) v SSHD, or to Lord Bingham’s three principles, he certainly accepted that the delay had an important impact on the scales of proportionality. He took that clearly into account, since he mentioned it at [46] and [49]. He was not required to mention EB (Kosovo) v SSHD; what mattered was that he took the relevant principles into account, which he clearly did.

58. Mr Raza’s final point was that the appellant and the sponsor would likely be separated if he was removed, because he was unlikely to be able to meet the Immigration Rules. There are three difficulties with that submission. The first is that the judge concluded that there were no insurmountable obstacles to family life continuing in Pakistan, and he was not required to engage in a counterfactual analysis when it came to his consideration outside the Rules. The second is that it has long been established that an applicant’s inability to meet the entry clearance rules from abroad is a matter which militates against them in the assessment of proportionality: Chikwamba v SSHD [2008] UKHL 40; [2008] 1 WLR 1420, at [36]. The third is that there was no evidence before the judge, nor seemingly any attempt to establish, that the appellant would be unable to meet the requirements of the Rules from Pakistan. In particular, there was no evidence of the sponsor’s ability to meet the Financial Requirements of the Rules, although it was clear that she was working in the UK. Mr Raza submitted that the appellant would be refused entry clearance as a result of his unlawful presence in the UK for a number of years but he readily accepted that any such refusal would be discretionary, not mandatory, and that any Entry Clearance Officer would be required to consider Article 8 ECHR rights before deploying such a ground of refusal.

59. In summary, there was nothing wrong in law with the judge’s assessment of the appellant’s Article 8 ECHR claim. He was entitled to find that the relationship was not genuine and subsisting but he sensibly chose to consider the case on the alternative basis also. Those alternative findings were also sound in law.

60. The appellant has not established that the judge erred in law in dismissing this appeal on protection or human rights grounds, and the appeal to the Upper Tribunal is therefore dismissed.

Notice of Decision

The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of an error on a point of law. The appeal to the Upper Tribunal is dismissed and the decision of the FtT shall stand.

Mark Blundell

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

6 October 2025

POST-SCRIPT – SHOW CAUSE NOTICE
1. As I have noted above, I directed that Mr Ullah of Morgan Lane Solicitors should write to the tribunal to explain why he had amended the grounds of appeal which were included in the consolidated bundle, despite the description of those grounds in the index being “Grounds on which the appellant has been granted permission to appeal”.
2. Mr Ullah responded promptly to that direction. He accepted that he had amended the grounds. He also accepted that the description on the index was inaccurate. He apologised to the tribunal for doing so.
3. Mr Ullah’s response misses the point which was apparent to Mr Raza at the hearing. The difficulty with the grounds is not merely that sentences were removed; it is why those parts of the original grounds were removed. The cases cited in the original grounds - Nye v SSHD [2021] EWCA Civ 148 and R (Goudey) v SSHD [2012] EWHC 567 (Admin) – do not exist. As I observed to Mr Raza at the hearing, I have however come across both of those citations in the past, in cases in which practitioners have failed to check the accuracy of drafting undertaken by generative Artificial Intelligence such as ChatGPT.
4. A failure to check the accuracy of such drafting can result in a court or tribunal being misled and is potentially grounds for referral to the Solicitors Regulation Authority or even stronger sanction: R (Ayinde) v London Borough of Haringey and Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank and Anor [2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin).
5. What concerns me in this case is not merely that there were false citations in the grounds of appeal considered by Judge Saffer; it is that those false citations were then removed from the grounds of appeal which were placed in the composite bundle. The former actions are unprofessional, the latter are potentially dishonest because it suggests that there was an attempt to conceal the false citations. It was for those reasons that I made it clear to Mr Raza that I expected there to be a full response from Mr Ullah.
6. I am prepared on this occasion to proceed on the basis that my full concerns were not made clear to Mr Ullah, despite the fact that I explored this problem in some detail at the hearing. In the circumstances, I direct as follows:
Rahat Ullah of Morgan Lane Solicitors shall, by 4pm on 13 October 2025, show cause why his conduct in this matter should not be referred to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
7. The response must be sent to UTIACLondonlawyers@justice.gov.uk.
8. I will consider what steps, if any, to take upon receipt of Mr Ullah’s response. In the absence of a response, his conduct in this matter is likely to be referred to the SRA for both of the reasons set out at [5] above.