Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003180

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/61428/2023
LP/09679/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 19th of September 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KAMARA

Between

AG
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr A Eaton, counsel instructed by Barnes, Harrild & Dyer Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr J Nappey, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 10 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
Introduction
1. The appellant has been granted permission to appeal the decision of a First-tier Tribunal Judge who dismissed their appeal following a hearing which took place on 19 March 2025.
Anonymity
2. An anonymity direction was made previously and is maintained because this appeal concerns a claim for international protection.
Factual Background
3. The appellant is a national of Iran, of Kurdish ethnicity now aged twenty-two. He arrived in the United Kingdom by small boat in November 2021 and immediately claimed asylum. That claim was based on the appellant being of adverse interest to the Iranian authorities owing to distributing leaflets produced by the KDPI; having attended two demonstrations in the United Kingdom and having posted anti-Iranian government material on Facebook. That claim was refused by way of a letter dated 4 October 2023, principally for want of credibility.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal
4. The credibility of the appellant’s claimed pre-flight events were rejected by the First-tier Tribunal in a 25-page decision, the reasons appearing from page 17 onwards. In addition, the judge found that it would be highly unlikely that the appellant would be identified by the Iranian government from the mass of critical social media material available.
The appeal to the Upper Tribunal
5. The grounds of appeal are summarised at paragraph 3 of the grounds as follows:

(a) The judge made comments and findings that were speculative;
(b) The judge made findings on matters that were not put to the appellant in cross-examination;
(c) The judge made findings and comments that were unfair and not reasonably open to him in light of the evidence;
(d) The judge “entered the arena” in cross-examining the appellant about matters that were not in evidence.
(e) The determination overall arguably demonstrates a starting-point of disbelief rather than an assessment of credibility to the lower standard.
6. Permission to appeal was granted on the basis sought.
7. The respondent filed a Rule 24 response dated 22 July 2025, in which the appeal was opposed, with detailed comments being made.
The error of law hearing
8. The matter comes before the Upper Tribunal to determine whether the decision contains an error of law and, if it is so concluded, to either re-make the decision or remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal to do so. A bundle was submitted by the appellant containing, inter alia, the core documents in the appeal, including the appellant’s and respondent’s bundles before the First-tier Tribunal.
9. The hearing was attended by representatives for both parties as above. Both representatives made submissions and the conclusions below reflect those arguments and submissions where necessary.
10. Mr Eaton did not focus on the assertion in the grounds that the judge went on a ‘frolic of his own’ and ‘entered the arena.’ Instead, he expanded on the concerns raised in the grounds regarding a number of the judge’s discrete findings which went to the credibility of the appellant’s claim.
Discussion
11. There are multiple concerns with many of the findings reached by the judge. Those findings were unsupported by sustainable reasoning or reference to country background material. Mr Eaton helpfully focused on the worst half-dozen findings and I will do likewise.
12. At [86-93] the judge found the appellant’s account that he was recruited to deliver KDPI leaflets by his uncle to be inherently implausible. Mr Nappey did not endeavour to defend this finding. The sole indication of any reason given by the judge for this finding, at [86] is that there was support for his view in the ‘objective evidence. ‘ Except that there is no reference to any evidence in this paragraph. I have taken into account that the judge set out a sentence from the respondent’s CPIN at [14] of the decision, however this merely states that the KDPI encourage those recruited, ‘especially’ those who are highly educated, to ‘stay in Iran to work for KDPI.’ Given the judge’s dismissive description of the appellant as ‘an illiterate farm boy,’ [89], the judge misdirected himself in considering that only the educated would be called upon to undertake work for the KDPI. There was no support in the country material for that finding.
13. The judge found at [98] that the appellant provided an inconsistent account of his activity of distributing KDPI leaflets. At [99], the judge stated that the appellant had initially said that he went ‘door to door’ and thus had ‘face to face…contact with persons [100]. The judge does not identify when the appellant said he distributed in this manner. This point did not arise in the screening interview and when interviewed substantively, the appellant stated that he ‘dropped the leaflets inside neighbours’ walls.’ Again, there is no support for this finding in the evidence provided. Indeed, Mr Nappey did not suggest otherwise during his submissions.
14. At [105-110] the judge remarks that the appellant, ‘even incredibly’ suggested that he was paid for delivering the leaflets. Despite the several paragraphs devoted to this topic, reasons for the judge’s findings are entirely absent. Furthermore, Mr Nappey agreed with Mr Eaton that there was a lack of reasoning.
15. The judge was not impressed that the appellant had failed to mention an aspect of his claim during his screening interview. At [114] the judge said there was no credible explanation for the appellant having not mentioned that he was ambushed, shot at and his uncle injured ‘at the earliest opportunity.’ The appellant’s explanation for not mentioning these matters, is that he was instructed by the interviewer to keep his answers short. That explanation is supported by the preformulated questions on the screening interview form which requests that asylum seekers ‘Please BRIEFLY explain ALL of the reasons why you cannot return to your home country? Various follow up questions are suggested, but no additional questions were recorded on the appellant’s form.
16. During the screening interview, the appellant is recorded as mentioning that he supported KDPI, that he distributed leaflets ‘etc’ and that he thinks he was reported to the authorities who had gone in search of him. Therefore, it is evident that the appellant, who was then aged eighteen and assisted by an interpreter who attended the interview remotely, briefly explained the basis of his protection claim as requested and was not questioned further regarding it.
17. It is obvious from the face of the screening interview, that the appellant was not asked to confirm the contents of the record, that he did not sign it and that it was not read back to him. The judge materially erred in not considering the surrounding circumstances of the interview before concluding that there was no good reason for the appellant not mentioning the details of his claim.
18. The appellant is recorded as saying that he had supported the KDPI for 4 years, in his screening interview. When interviewed substantively, the appellant clarified that this was incorrect because his involvement had only been for 4 months. At page 27 of the respondent’s bundle, the appellant made a number of other corrections to the screening interview transcript including the spelling of his name, his occupation in Iran, contact number and email address. The judge repeatedly seized on this discrepancy [94-98] without considering the circumstances of the screening interview as referred to above and that the appellant had corrected the error at the earliest opportunity.
19. A further finding of the judge was that the appellant worked as a Kolbar as well as a farmer. This was a matter which the appellant corrected following his screening interview, clarifying that he was only a farmer. The judge appears much exercised by this issue [118-125], however he does not explain how the appellant being a Kolbar is relevant to the issues before him, particularly that of the appellant being paid to distribute KDPI material.
20. Lastly, the judge took it upon himself to question the appellant on his ‘reflections about the recent Ocalan peace initiative.’ [74]. The appellant’s admitted ignorance as to this initiative evidently left the judge further unimpressed as can be seen from his reference at [75] to the appellant’s ‘claimed engagement in Kurdish issues.’ Furthermore, the judge dismissed counsel’s objections to this question being put because he considered this to be ‘an obvious consideration arising from a core feature of the asylum narrative.’[76]. This question does not amount to clarification and cannot be said to arise from the facts of the appellant’s claim. A claim which amounted to little more than the uneducated and teenage appellant having being tasked by his uncle to drop leaflets over walls. I find that Mr Eaton’s restrained submission that the judge took an overly prejudicial approach to the appeal to be made out.
21. There is much more which could be said about the decision in this case however, I consider that the foregoing errors, which are material to the outcome of the protection claim, suffice to demonstrate that the decision is unsafe.
22. The judge’s errors in relation to the appellant’s pre-flight claim materially affect the sur place claim because whether the appellant’s political activity in Iran is genuine is likely to affect the consideration of his motivation for posting material online as well as the question of whether he could be expected to delete it, applying HJ (Iran).
23. I canvassed the views of the parties as to the venue of any remaking and both were of the view that the matter ought to be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for a de novo hearing.
24. Applying AEB [2022] EWCA Civ 1512 and Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 00046 (IAC), I carefully considered whether to retain the matter for remaking in the Upper Tribunal, in line with the general principle set out in statement 7 of the Senior President’s Practice Statements. I took into consideration the history of this case, the nature and extent of the findings to be made as well as the fact that the nature of the errors of law in this case meant that the appellant was deprived of a fair adequate consideration of his protection appeal. I further consider that it would be unfair for either party to be unable to avail themselves of the two-tier decision-making process and therefore remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal.

Notice of Decision
The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal did involve the making of an error on a point of law.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside.
The appeal is remitted, de novo, to the First-tier Tribunal to be reheard by a different judge.

T Kamara

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

11 September 2025