Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003288

First-tier Tribunal No: HU/64702/2023
LH/05908/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 26th of September 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LINDSLEY

Between

GENTJAN DAUTI
(ANONYMITY ORDER NOT MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr T Wilding, of Counsel, instructed by Marsh & Partners Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr E Tufan, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 23 September 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction
1. The appellant is a citizen of Albania born on 3rd July 1984. He came to the UK illegally in March 2007. He claimed asylum but the application was refused, and his appeal dismissed. He then made further submissions on 21st June 2021 and these were refused in the decision under challenge in this appeal dated 28th October 2022. The appellant’s appeal against this decision was dismissed on human rights grounds by the First-tier Tribunal Judge in a decision promulgated on 6th February 2025.
2. Permission to appeal was granted by a Judge of the First-tier Tribunal on 16th July 2025 on the basis that it was arguable that the First-tier judge had erred in law for the reasons set out in the grounds.
3. The matter now comes before me to determine whether the First-tier Tribunal had erred in law, and if so whether any such error was material and whether the decision of the First-tier Tribunal should be set aside.
4. At the start of the hearing Mr Tufan informed me that he accepted that the First-tier Tribunal had erred in law and that the errors meant all of the findings had to be set aside. Both Mr Tufan and Mr Wilding explained that there had also been further developments. The other child of the appellant’s ex-partner had had her British citizenship revoked, and so that child no longer had British citizenship and the ex-partner no longer had leave to remain as a parent of a British child, and instead it was understood they both had outstanding applications for leave to remain. As such any remaking was therefore going to be starting from a different position for the appellant. In the circumstances both parties submitted that the matter should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for remaking.
Conclusions – Error of Law
5. As an error of law is found by consent there is no need for me to give reasons however Mr Tufan for the respondent indicated that he found particular merit in the first ground that that First-tier Tribunal had misunderstood the evidence from the appellant’s ex-partner, and mother of his child, with respect to visits when finding that she had said in oral evidence he only went to visit in the mornings when counsel’s note was clear that she also said the appellant visited in the evenings, and so it could not rationally be said that the evidence of the appellant that he visited after work was inconsistent with that of his ex-partner and mother of his child as is done at paragraphs 14 and 15 of the decision. It is clear that this erroneously found inconsistency then led the First-tier Tribunal to find that the appellant did not make weekend visits despite the other evidence supporting this contention at paragraph 15 of the decision and was material in concluding that there was no genuine and subsisting relationship between the appellant and his daughter, and in conclusion at paragraph 25 of the decision that there is no family life between the appellant and his daughter and that he “is not a doting father who plays a significant part in his child’s life” when conducting the proportionality exercise.
6. In these circumstances I find that all of the findings of the First-tier Tribunal must be set aside as errors of fact amounting to errors of law have infected the entire decision, and in light of the extent of remaking and indeed the new factual matrix relating to the appellant’s child’s mother immigration status, the matter should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be remade de novo by a different Judge of the First-tier Tribunal.

Decision:
1. The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of an error on a point of law.
2. I set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal and all of the findings.
3. I remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard de novo by a different First-tier Tribunal Judge.

Fiona Lindsley

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

23rd September 2025