Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003386

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/52640/2024
LP/00384/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 2nd of October 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LAY

Between

CC
(Anonymity Order Made)
Appellant
v

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms N Ahmad, Counsel instructed by Victoria Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms A Ahmed, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 26 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. The Appellant is Chinese national whose asylum and human rights claims were refused by the Respondent in a decision dated 29 January 2024. His appeal against that refusal was heard by First-tier Tribunal Judge Cohen (hereafter, “FTJ”) on 17 June 2025, with a determination promulgated the same day. The FTJ dismissed the Appellant’s appeal on all grounds.

2. The Appellant was granted permission to appeal on all pleaded grounds on 24 July 2025.

3. Ground 1 argued that the FTJ had erred in the approach taken to the credibility of the core account, with undue reliance placed on the delay in the Appellant claiming asylum (over a decade after entering the UK) and a failure to follow KB & AH (credibility structured approach) Pakistan [2017] UKUT 00491.

4. Grounds 2 & 3 challenged the FTJ’s findings on Article 8 ECHR, contending that the determination did not consider the challenges the Appellant would face on return with regard to household registration in a new area of the country – the “hukou system”, did not take into account “the young age of the Appellant when he left” China, “failed to consider the extent of his ties in the UK” and failed to rationally evaluate obstacles to integration, per Kamara v SSHD [2016] EWCA Civ 813.

5. Articulated within Ground 3 is a contention that there was a “failing [sic] to give weight to pertinent factual aspects of the Appellant’s claim” and that it was irrational to assign weight to the public interest in removal in so far as a strand of that public interest was deemed by the FTJ to relate to her finding that the Appellant had received free medical treatment within the NHS.

6. At the error of law hearing, there was a 203-page composite bundle and a Rule 24 reply. Bundle references in this determination are in the format as follows: [CB: XX]: [Composite Bundle: page number]. Ms Ahmed also provided the Home Office bundle relied upon at the First-tier hearing and the Respondent’s Review (dated 11 February 2025) for that same hearing.

The grant of permission

7. The grant of permission, at paragraph 3, places Ground 1 within the frame of the mandatory adverse credibility considerations enjoined by s.8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004. Ms Ahmad, on behalf of the Appellant – rightly, in my view – did not argue her case in that way. While s.8 was raised by the Secretary of State in her Respondent’s Review, it was not in the original refusal letter and formed no basis of the determination under challenge nor was it in the grounds of appeal to the Upper Tribunal. This was no doubt because failure to claim asylum upon arrival is not on its own a s.8 scenario – unless the asylum claim has been made in a period after service of an immigration decision or enforcement action/arrest. There was nothing in the papers before me to suggest that a s.8 scenario arose here. Neither the Appellant nor the Respondent to this appeal submitted that s.8 ought to have applied or was otherwise relevant.

8. Of course, the fact of having claimed asylum more than a decade after entering the UK was plainly in the FTJ’s mind in the determination and informed her approach to credibility and the Appellant’s evidence more generally, but that is a different framing.

9. Secondly, the grant of permission noted that it was arguable that the “hukou” registration system ought to have been considered in the context of the private life claim but Ms Ahmad acknowledged that, once the protection claim had been dismissed, the Article 8 consideration by necessity proceeded on the basis that the Appellant would be returning to his former home area, in which case difficulties of household registration would not arise.

Submissions

10. Ms Ahmad, on behalf of the Appellant, submitted that “undue weight” was given to the fact of the Appellant not claiming asylum for a significant period time after arrival in the UK. It was not argued by her that it was impermissible/irrational to assign some weight to that factor when evaluating credibility but, rather, that it appeared to be the sole articulated reason that the FTJ had in mind when not accepting the Appellant’s account and thus there had not been a holistic evaluation of all the evidence in his claim.

11. In KB & AH (credibility-structured approach) Pakistan [2017] UKUT 00491 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal held that the Credibility Indicators identified in the Home Office Asylum Policy Instruction, “Assessing credibility and refugee status”, Version 3.0, 6 January 2015 (which can be summarised as comprising sufficiency of detail; internal consistency; external consistency; and plausibility), provide a helpful framework within which to conduct a credibility assessment. Assessment of credibility is a highly fact-sensitive matter and evidence has to be considered as a whole or “in the round”. Ms Ahmad argued that, on the face of the determination, this could not be said to have done in this case.

12. KB & AH was pleaded in the grounds of appeal at paragraph 8.

13. As for Article 8 ECHR, Ms Ahmad submitted that “insufficient weight” was given to the Appellant’s community ties in the UK. She referred to two photographs (undated, unlabelled) of the Appellant with friends [CB: 166-167] and the contents of the Appellant’s witness statement at paragraph 12 where he describes friends in the UK as a “chosen family”. She emphasised that the Secretary of State’s refusal letter had accepted that the Appellant no longer has contact with his parents in China and that this was a factor to be taken into account. The Appellant entered the UK aged 22 and, as of the date of hearing was 39 years old.

14. Ms Ahmad also argued that there was no basis for the FTJ’s “assumption” that, per paragraph 22, “the Appellant’s medical evidence indicates that he has received NHS treatment which fortifies the public interest in removal” and this alone tainted the proportionality assessment.

15. Ms Ahmed, on behalf of the Secretary of State, countered that the delay in claiming asylum in this case was of “more significance than usual”, given the length of time between entering the UK and claiming asylum (12 years). The FTJ was entitled to take into account the delay as adverse to his credibility, to reject his explanation for the delay and to also bear in mind the lack of any other evidence. The FTJ has given reasons for giving little weight to the photographs of the Appellant’s ribs (paragraph 25). The central findings at paragraph 27 are clear. The FTJ rejected the Appellant’s account because he was not believed. The grounds of appeal, Ms Ahmed submitted, were simply trying to re-argue a case that had lost below.

16. On Article 8 ECHR, Ms Ahmed submitted that the FTJ had explicitly had regard to the Appellant’s length of residence in the UK but had given little weight to his private established when unlawfully in the country, as enjoined by s.117B NIAA 2002. The evidence on community ties was scant. The medical evidence was considered at paragraph 29. The FTJ had reached her conclusions based on findings that he could return to his former home area where there were neither risks nor obstacles of any kind.

Conclusions

17. The FTJ’s assessment of credibility, consistent with KB & AH but also general principles of rationality, required consideration of all the evidence in the round. The problem with the determination is that, aside from the adverse view taken due to the delay in claiming asylum, and a comment on the limitations of the medical evidence – neither of which was impermissible on their own terms – there is no indication on the face of the determination of why the core account of (i) a loan being taken out and (ii) the Appellant and his parents being threatened has been rejected. I am being asked to assume that a holistic evaluation of credibility was carried out when I cannot divine it from the determination itself.

18. It is worth noting also the Senior President’s Practice Direction, “Reasons for decisions”, dated 4 June 2024, which reminds the IAC that an appellate body needs to be assisted so that it can “understand the Tribunal’s thought process in making material findings”.

19. It is plain from the determination that the Appellant gave oral evidence and was cross-examined. He had provided a witness statement dated 11 October 2024. He was of course also interviewed by the Home Office as part of his asylum claim. But nowhere in the determination does the FTJ provide any indication of whether elements of his account or evidence have revealed inconsistencies, implausibilities or ambiguities such that it could not be accepted.

20. Reading the determination, the reasoning is primarily that the asylum claim was made very late (and long after the Appellant became an overstayer) and the FTJ has rejected the Appellant’s explanation for it being late, namely that he had been unaware that seeking asylum was an option. The FTJ has also stated that the evidence of the claimed attack over 20 years ago, in the form of two photographs, does not enable her to reach a view on the likely cause of any purported injury or whether it bolsters the core account.

21. The firm impression is that adverse credibility flowing from the late timing of the claim has played the central (and indeed sole) role in determining the veracity of the underlying asylum claim as a whole. I wish to stress that, in my view, the FTJ was in principle entitled to take into account the failure to claim asylum earlier and entitled also to reject the Appellant’s explanation and draw an adverse inference - but adverse credibility in that regard cannot rationally have ended the examination of the Appellant’s claim in toto. The FTJ was still obliged to consider the Appellant’s positive case, contained in the witness statement, asylum interview and oral evidence and, if rejecting the core account, provide reasons for doing so in a way that enabled a reader to understand the process that had been undertaken.

22. What we do have is the following at paragraph 27: “taking all these issues together, and weighing all the evidence before me, I find that I am unable to find that the Appellant has established a well-founded fear… I find that I do not accept that the Appellant was attached as he claimed when he was 17/18 years old and I do not accept his claim of threats made by the loan sharks following his parents borrowing money. I find that the Appellant has made up a false asylum claim in circumstances where he is an overstayer in the UK”.

23. This is precisely the place in the determination where it would be expected for the FTJ’s evaluation of credibility to sit. The determination contains the negative findings but not the route to those findings. I cannot construe the reasons that the Appellant has been disbelieved, aside from the dilatory claim.

24. If the FTJ was unimpressed by the Appellant’s oral evidence, for example, she could have said so (but has not). The Home Office, at paragraph 8(a) of the Refusal Letter [CB: 198], raised issues with the underlying plausibility/consistency of the core past account. The determination does not reveal whether the FTJ agreed with that analysis. At paragraph 11 of the Respondent’s Review, the Secretary of State “submitted the A was unable to provide a credible and consistent account of his claim throughout his AI [Asylum Interview] which casts significant doubt on his credibility”. Again, it may well have been open to the FTJ to share that view but the determination does not state as such. By failing to provide the necessary analysis, the FTJ is left open to the challenge that a lawful evaluation of credibility has not been carried out.

25. I have paid close attention to the guidance in Volpi & Anor v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464 but I am compelled to conclude that Ground 1 is made out. The approach to the evaluation of credibility contains a material error of law.

26. Since the evaluation of credibility was tainted by error, there will need to be de novo consideration of the Appellant’s protection claim and the core account upon which it is based. The Article 8 ECHR consideration in the determination (paragraphs 29-36) was, in turn, logically founded upon findings of fact, including the Appellant’s history in and ties to China, which have been set aside and will now be re-made and may change. The Article 8 ECHR portion of the determination therefore cannot be preserved. It would place the new FTJ in procedural and practical difficulty to carve out that section of the determination when there is overlap in the fact-finding. The proportionality assessment will, therefore, also have to be revisited at the same time. Grounds 2 and 3 are therefore rendered otiose.

27. I have had regard to Section 7 of the “Senior President’s Practice Statements of the Immigration and Asylum Chambers of the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal” (SPT Ryder, 11 June 2018) and Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 46 (IAC). Remittal to the First-tier Tribunal is not the usual course but I find that it is appropriate in the circumstances of this appeal.

Notice of Decision

The decision of the First-tier Tribunal, which dismissed the appeal, is set aside and the appeal is remitted to the First-Tier Tribunal de novo.

Taimour Lay

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

26 September 2025