Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003176

First-tier Tribunal Nos: PA/54911/2024
LP/12211/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 12th November 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’BRIEN

Between

AB
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

The Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Hawkins of Counsel, Kreston Law Limited
For the Respondent: Ms McKenzie, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 18 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. With permission the appellant seeks to challenge the decision of the First-tier Tribunal promulgated on 2 June 2025 dismissing his appeal against the respondent’s refusal of his protection and human rights claims.
2. The grounds, upon which permission was granted in respect of all, comprise seven separate challenges. First, the judge inappropriately described matters as inconsistent where there was in fact no inconsistency. Second, the judge was unclear as to what findings were made in respect of the appellant’s second arrest. Third, there is lack of clarity as to what elements of the appellant’s case were accepted and not accepted. Fourth, the judge had apparently not taken into account the appellant’s claim in his asylum interview of a claim of continued interest in him by the Turkish authorities. Fifth, there was a failure to make clear findings about the official documents relied upon, the Turkish arrest warrants and the court documents. Sixth, there was an inappropriate finding that arrest and detention did not necessarily amount to a well-founded fear of persecution and real risk of harm. Seventh, the judge suggesting that arrest and detention was not consistent with persecutions was an irrational conclusion.
3. I was very much helped today by the cooperative nature in which both representatives ran their cases, In short, Ms McKenzie conceded on behalf of the respondent that ground 6, the finding that arrest and detention did not necessarily amount to a fear of persecution and real risk of harm overlooked material evidence (in particular within the relevant CPIN) and could not stand. She also conceded that ground 3, the lack of clarity of which elements of the appellant’s account were accepted and which were rejected, was also made out and constituted a material error of law. I find that both of these concessions are well made and that grounds 1 and 6 identify material errors of law for the reasons given in the grounds.
4. In turn, Mr Hawkins did not press too hard ground 1, which I had indicated as a preliminary view was not his best point. That ground, I find, is not made out. It was perfectly open for the judge to describe the matters he or she did as inconsistencies for the reasons given in the decision. Neither do I find that ground 2 independently identifies a material error of law; it is better regarded as a specific instance of the conceded ground 3.
5. Ground 5 regarding the judge’s treatment of documents similarly does not in itself disclose an independent error of law. There was a correct self-direction in Tanveer Ahmed and it is clear that the judge had considered all matters in the round and reached a perfectly permissible conclusion on the reliability of the documents in question. That conclusion would have been unimpeachable, had the judge’s wider fact-finding been sound.
6. There was some force in Ms McKenzie’s submission regarding the ground 4, that a failure to take into account the appellant’s claim in his asylum interview for there to be continued interest in him, cannot properly be considered an error of law when that assertion does not appear to have been repeated in his witness statement or the appeal skeleton argument.
7. As it is, however, given the lack of clarity as to which parts of the appellant’s case were accepted (ground 3) and the misdirection on what constitutes persecution (ground 6, essentially duplicated in ground 7), none of the judge’s findings or conclusions can stand.
8. The matter will need to be reheard with no findings preserved. The parties were not in agreement on disposal, the respondent suggesting that the matter could be retained in the Upper Tribunal whereas the appellant submitted that remittal was necessary.
9. Whilst indicating at the hearing that I favoured retention, on reflection I am persuaded that the fact that none of the facts or conclusions can be retained favours remittal, notwithstanding that no unfairness is alleged in the grounds. In reaching that conclusion, I have born in mind the principles set out in Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 46 (IAC).
Notice of Decision
1. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of an error of law and is set aside.
2. The appeal is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be reheard by another judge with no findings of fact preserved.

Sean O’Brien

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

6 November 2025