Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003356

PA/63811/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 25 November 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BRUCE

Between

MS (IRAQ)
(anonymity order made)
Appellant
And

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Cole, Parker Rhodes Hickmott
For the Respondent: Ms Sanders, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Phoenix House (Bradford) on 1 October 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The Appellant is a national of Iraq born in 1971. He appeals with permission against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 14 April 2025 to dismiss his appeal on human rights and protection grounds.
2. The only issue before the First-tier Tribunal was whether the Appellant has converted to Christianity as he claims. If had has, then it was accepted by the Secretary of State that he would face a real risk of persecution in Iraq for reasons of his religious belief and he would be entitled to refugee status. The Tribunal found against the Appellant on that one key issue and the Appellant now contends that there were several errors in its approach to that matter.
Error of Law: Discussion and Findings
3. This was an appeal to which the guidance in Devaseelan [2002] UKIAT 72 applied. That is because this was not the first time that the First-tier Tribunal had been asked to consider the protection requirements and/or human rights of the Appellant.
4. The Appellant had arrived in the United Kingdom in 2019 and had claimed asylum on the basis that he faced a threat of persecution because of his imputed political opinion, namely an alleged affiliation with the Islamic Republic of Iran. That claim was rejected by the Respondent. The Appellant had appealed and on 12 March 2022 First-tier Tribunal Judge Moxon had dismissed his appeal.
5. In the present appeal, the First-tier Tribunal quite properly directed itself to Devaseelan, and treats Judge Moxon’s decision as its starting point. The difficulty with that, submits Mr Cole, is that the Tribunal has misunderstood what the decision of Judge Moxon actually said.
6. In its rejection of the Appellant’s claim to have converted to Christianity the present Tribunal drew adverse inference from the Appellant’s failure to mention anything about Christianity before Judge Moxon:
“22. A core element in the 2022 decision was around issues at his work at the Chamber of Commerce linked to a perception of him being Iranian. In that previous claim he never mentioned issues at work over religion. However, he now states that he was openly questioning Islam at breakfast meetings with colleagues at the Chamber of Commerce (oral evidence and at witness statement para 22/23) and that was one reason why he had issues at work / was passed over for promotion. If true, I consider that this feature would have naturally come out in the previous asylum claim and appeal. The failure to mention that religious element (linked to work) seriously damages the credibility of the current account and indicates that it is a recent fabrication.
23. The appellant was asked and simply could not remember if he told Judge Moxon in 2022 about the religious element, he plainly did not. Per above, it would have been a natural element to tell when it came to issues at work. It is unclear whether the appellant was represented in that previous appeal, there was an advocate but we know no more. Even if he was not represented that does not completely excuse the failure to mention any religious issues, up to and including at a final hearing, when that was so clearly linked to the claims around his workplace”.
7. Mr Cole submits first that these passages are central to the Tribunal’s conclusion that the Appellant has not proven his conversion to Christianity to be genuine. For the Secretary of State, Ms Sanders did not argue with that analysis and I accept it.
8. Mr Cole next submits that the factual premise underpinning the reasoning – that an interest in Christianity would have quite naturally emerged before Judge Moxon if it were true – is simply a misunderstanding of the claim advanced in 2022. Having re-read the decision of Judge Moxon I have, with some reluctance, found this submission is also made out. It is right that a the First-tier Tribunal must subject any claim of sur place religious conversion to rigorous scrutiny; it is further right to say that this should include, per Devaseelan, an examination of what a claimant has said in any earlier claim. Where however that earlier claim was advanced on an entirely different factual premise, there will be limits to the utility of that exercise. The claim before Judge Moxon was not, as the present Tribunal appears to think, about the Appellant experiencing difficulties with colleagues at work. It was about him facing threats and harassment from an Iraqi militia group because of his alleged corrupt practices in his role at the Chamber of Commerce. The basis of that 2022 claim was that the Appellant was suspected by this militia of unfairly favouring Iranian companies in the course of his work, and that they intended to punish him for that. I agree with Mr Cole that it is difficult to see why the Appellant’s breakfast conversations with colleagues about Islam might have been relevant to that claimed risk.
9. Ground 1 is therefore made out. The erroneous reading of Judge Moxon’s decision was a material factor in the Tribunal’s decision to dismiss the appeal. It follows that the decision must be set aside. I therefore need not address the remaining grounds, save to note that ground 4 is also made out: that is that having applied the NABA 2022 standard of proof to this protection (asylum) claim the Tribunal failed to go on to consider the facts under the less onerous standard of proof applicable in respect of human rights/humanitarian protection.

Decisions
10. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal is set aside. The decision in the appeal will need to be remade afresh by a differently constituted First-tier Tribunal.
11. There is an order for anonymity in this ongoing protection claim.

Upper Tribunal Judge Bruce
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
19th November 2025