Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003469

First-tier Tribunal No: RP/50039/2022
LR/00003/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 8th of January 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE PARKES

Between

KT
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms U Miszkiel (Counsel)
For the Respondent: Ms H Gilmore (Senior Home Office Presenting Officer)

Heard at Field House on 12th December 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 a citizen of Sri Lanka. The Appellant's application for asylum was refused by the Secretary of State. His appeal against that decision was first heard by Judge Boyes but that decision was overturned and the appeal remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for re-hearing. The appeal was heard by Judge J Bowen at Columbus House, Newport, on the 22nd of October 2024 and allowed for the reasons given in the Decision of the 19th of November 2024.
2. The Respondent sought permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal in grounds of the 3rd of December 2024. In summary it is argued that the Judge erred in the consideration of the evidence relating to whether the Appellant had a passport and how he had travelled to Qatar in 2015 and his ability to leave Sri Lanka and the relevance of the issue to his claimed later detention in 2017 and whether the Appellant was on a stop list.
3. It is also argued that the Judge did not make adequate findings in line with the guidance in KK and RS. The question being whether there was an extant arrest warrant or court order that would see the Appellant being placed on a stop list. The errors in turn infect the findings on the Appellant's sur place activities. Permission was granted by the First-tier Tribunal on the 15th of July 2025 by Judge Saffer.
4. The Appellant's Rule 24 Response is at page 36 of the Upper Tribunal CE file. Having set out applicable guidance the Response notes that the Judge had accepted the Appellant's account of his arrest and detention on return from Qatar in 2017 and his being bailed with reporting conditions, release having been obtained by a bribe. At paragraph 50 the Judge found that the Appellant would be perceived as being a threat to the integrity of Sri Lanka and would be on a stop-list having failed to report. There had been an adequate discussion of the Appellant's credibility and the Tribunal had accepted the evidence of Mr Punethanayagam.
5. It had not been suggested by the Respondent that the Appellant had a valid passport in his possession where he claimed asylum on arrival in the UK. The Appellant would not be returning to Sri Lanka on his own passport but on a TTD. The Appellant's evidence was that in 2015 he had left with the assistance of an agent, regardless of whether he had used his own passport or documents provided by the agent.
6. Similarly it is argued that the second ground is a disagreement with findings open to the Judge for the reasons given. KK and RS had been considered by the Judge, see paragraph 26, and it was not an error to rely on the position set out at paragraph 535 of that decision. In the light of the findings made the Judge was entitled to find that the Appellant would be perceived as a threat to Sri Lankan integrity and properly applied the low threshold.
7. The oral submissions made were in line with the written submissions that the parties had made in advance of the hearing. In addition the Home Office submitted that findings were needed on the issue whether the Appellant had had a Sri Lankan passport, paragraph 43 of the decision and the position in the Appellant's interview at questions 127 to 129. It was also argued that with respect to the Appellant's return to Sri Lanka in 207 the Judge had not made clear findings. Ground 2 is interlinked, an extant arrest warrant or court order would be needed to be on a stop list, the risk depends on the document used on return.
8. For the Appellant it was maintained that the Home Office position is a disagreement with the decision. The Appellant's evidence, which was accepted, was that in 2015 he had left with the assistance of an agent, that was consistent with the Appellant using his own passport and did not affect the issue of his return and it was accepted he had been arrested on his return. The question for the Tribunal was the position on arrival in Sri Lanka. The Secretary of State had not said that the Appellant arrived in the UK on his own passport, his evidence was he left with the help of an agent and would return on a TTD. Having been stopped once he would be stopped again and this time not on his own passport.
9. In terms of ground 2 there was no challenge to the findings on the Appellant's sur place activities at paragraphs 53 to 59 of the decision. Also the Judge had referred to KK and RS, the issue of the stop-list and the nature of an Appellant's return and the document used.
10. While the Secretary of State’s grounds of application raise a number of concerns it is pertinent to note that a number of findings made by Judge Bowen are not questioned or challenged. Paragraph 6 of the grounds asserts that the Judge did not resolve the question of the document used by the Appellant to travel to Qatar. However the findings that the Appellant had paid a bribe to be released from detention on his return in 2017 was not challenged.
11. The Appellant leaving Sri Lanka on his own passport is consistent with the use of an agent to facilitate his movement through the airport. The finding that the Appellant was stopped on his way back into the country, also not challenged. implies the use of documentation in his own name and can only be read on the basis that the Appellant was then on a stop-list. It would follow that if the Appellant was on a stop-list then he would be on one now.
12. In addition to the findings of what happened to the Appellant on his return to the country in 2017 there is now the accepted evidence of the Appellant's sur place activities. The Judge’s finding that the Appellant is known to the authorities by virtue of his being stopped and detained in 2017 would mean that his sur place activities will be linked to someone already of adverse interest. As Ms Miszkiel observed the Appellant would be returned on a TTD and that itself would bring about an increased interest in the Appellant, whatever his background.
13. The findings made were in the context of the acceptance of the evidence of Mr Punethanayagam and it is not suggested that the Judge made an error in accepting his evidence, nor could it have been. The decision has to be read fairly and as a whole without taking aspects of it out of context or divorced from the wider scope of the discussion.
14. It might have helped if the Judge had been clearer on the issue of the document used by the Appellant to leave Sri Lanka but in the context of the decisions made about how he left the country and the events on his return the gap is not an error and it is not at all material. In summary the Judge having found that the Appellant had been detained on his return in 2017, that he left with the assistance of an agent and would be returning on a TTD in the context of his sur place activities was entitled to conclude that he was in need of international protection as he would be identified as a threat to the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka.

Notice of Decision
15. The grounds do not show that the decision of Judge Bowen contained any error of law. The decision of Judge Bowen stands as the disposal of the Appellant's appeal and the appeal of the Secretary of State is dismissed.

Judge Parkes

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

Dated: 29th December 2025

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