Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003698

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/52402/2024
LP/13667/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 24 October 2025

Before
UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE NORTON-TAYLOR

Between
HH
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the appellant: Mr A Malik, Counsel, instructed by Lisa’s Law Limited
For the respondent: Ms J Isherwood, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 14 October 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, a citizen of Vietnam, appeals with permission against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Isaacs (“the judge”), promulgated on 7 July 2025. By that decision, the judge dismissed the appellant’s appeal against the respondent’s refusal of his protection and human rights claims.

2. In summary, the appellant claimed to be at risk on return for two reasons. First, he claimed to have witnessed a massacre by the Vietnamese authorities of some 3000 people following a demonstration in 2001. His status as a witness would place him at risk. Secondly, he claims to have undertaken anti-government activities whilst in the United Kingdom and this too is said to have created a risk. As to Article 8, he asserted that there would be very significant obstacles to reintegration into Vietnamese society, or there otherwise existed a combination of factors which would render his removal disproportionate.

The judge’s decision
3. The judge comprehensively disbelieved the appellant’s account, concluding that the claimed events in Vietnam had not occurred, that the Facebook evidence carried no weight, and that as a consequence the appellant would not be at risk on return: [18]-[37]. The judge concluded that there would not be very significant obstacles to reintegration and that removal would be proportionate: [39]-[40].

4. The appeal was accordingly dismissed on all grounds.

The grounds of appeal and grant of permission
5. Seven grounds of appeal have been put forward. I only summarise them here. First, the judge erred law when making credibility findings without properly engaging with the supporting evidence or providing adequate reasons. Secondly, the judge erred by placing no weight on the Facebook evidence. Thirdly, the judge failed to put “adverse findings” or matters to the appellant (specifically the meaning of Facebook icons). Fourthly, the judge misapplied “country guidance” and failed to engage with the respondent’s concession on sufficiency of protection and internal relocation as an alternative to the rejection of the appellant’s account. Fifthly, the judge “misconstrued or ignored” material evidence relating to the delay in claiming asylum. Sixthly, the judge failed to properly consider the appellant’s evidence on previous interpretation difficulties. Seventhly, in considering Article 8 the judge erred by failing to take account of delay and medical conditions.

6. Permission was granted on all grounds.

Rule 24
7. The respondent provided a detailed rule 24 response, dated 2 September 2025, addressing all of the grounds.

The hearing
8. Mr Malik relied on his skeleton argument (which essentially followed the grounds of appeal) and confirmed that he was maintaining all seven of the grounds. In respect of the first ground, he accepted that the appellant had not provided any country evidence. In respect of the second and third grounds, he declined to suggest that the icon on the Facebook evidence did not in fact show that it was limited to friends only. He submitted that a single post from 2018 had been reposted and that it was unclear whether that had been limited to friends only. On the fourth ground, Mr Malik submitted that the judge had been obliged as a matter of law to consider alternative risk scenarios notwithstanding the judge’s complete rejection of the account. He made no submissions on the fifth, sixth, and seventh grounds.

9. Ms Isherwood confirmed that she relied on the rule 24 response. I did not need to hear anything further from her.

10. At the end of the hearing I announced to the parties my conclusion that the judge had not materially erred in law and that the appellant’s appeal was to be dismissed, with reasons to follow.

Reasons
11. I have approached this appeal bearing in mind the need for appropriate judicial restraint before interfering with a decision of the First-tier Tribunal. Such decisions must be read holistically and sensibly and not be subjected to undue forensic analysis.
12. As a composite conclusion, none of the grounds have any merit and, frankly, I am somewhat surprised that permission was granted at all.

The first ground
13. It is fanciful to suggest that the judge was under an obligation to conduct his own research into the country evidence when no such evidence had been provided by the appellant. There is no legal basis for such a proposition.

14. The judge gave numerous and cogent reasons for disbelieving the claimed events in Vietnam. The grounds referred to the appellant’s “unwillingness” to provide certain details and the “consistent narrative over time”. Those points might have featured as submissions before the judge, but at this stage they are nothing more than disagreements with the judge’s careful analysis of the evidence as a whole.

The second and third grounds
15. I deal with these grounds together because they both relate to the judge’s assessment of the Facebook evidence, which was said by the appellant to demonstrate a risk on return.

16. The Judge was plainly entitled to place no weight on the Facebook evidence, for the detailed reasons he provided at [29]-[34]. It is quite obvious to the reader that the evidence was of no probative value to the question of risk on return. The judge was fully entitled to take account of the absence of the full metadata relating to the Facebook account. Further, and importantly, it is absurd to suggest that the judge was in any way wrong to have stated that the icon on the Facebook evidence indicated that the setting was for friends only. As pointed out in the rule 24 response, a simple Google search would demonstrate beyond question that the icon was as described by the judge. The appellant had provided the Facebook evidence and he was asserting that it disclosed a risk on return for him because the Vietnamese authorities might have seen it. It was for him to demonstrate that such a possibility existed. Not only did the appellant failed to provide any documentary evidence seeking to demonstrate that the icon was in fact related to a public setting (a task which would have been impossible), but I am satisfied that the judge did in fact raise the issue with the appellant at the hearing. As is rightly pointed out in the rule 24 response, if the appellant was disputing what was said at the hearing, it was for him to provide evidence to that effect (by producing a note of the hearing, or making a request to listen to the audio recording). No such evidence has been forthcoming. The judge dealt properly with the 2018 post, concluding that it had not in fact been originally posted in that year, or that it had been publicly accessible at all.

The fourth ground
17. I conclude that this ground is utterly hopeless. The judge rejected the entirety of the appellant’s account and did so for eminently sustainable reasons. Contrary to Mr Malik’s submission, there was no obligation on the judge to then go on and reach alternative findings on risk. Whilst it is open to a judge to take that approach in an appropriate case, there is no requirement to do so. The fact that the respondent had conceded that if the appellant was at risk from the authorities there would be no state protection or internal relocation option is entirely beside the point: the judge concluded that the appellant was not at risk from the authorities.

The fifth ground
18. This ground is close to being disingenuous. It asserts that the judge erred by failing to take account of evidence provided late in the day by the appellant to the effect that he had been trafficked whilst in Europe and that this went to explain the failure to have claimed asylum in the first safe country. As rightly pointed out by the rule 24 response, this particular aspect of the appellant’s evidence was not relied on before the judge: [9]-[11]. In any event, the judge was entitled to reject the evidence of claimed trafficking. Further or alternatively, that aspect of the judge’s reasoning was clearly peripheral.

The sixth ground
19. The judge properly considered the appellant’s evidence that there had been interpretation difficulties previously. The reasons given by the judge at [21] were more than adequate. The judge was plainly entitled to find that an interpreter would not have made such an egregious error and that the appellant had given “three entirely different account” of how he managed to avoid being killed along with the other people following the demonstration in 2001. The ground is nothing more than a poor attempt to disagree with the judge’s assessment.

The seventh ground
20. Again, this ground is wholly unmeritorious. The reference to a single factor considered by the judge is disingenuous: in fact, at [39] the judge referred to three important factors when considering the very significant obstacles test. The conclusion that no such obstacles would exist is clearly sustainable.

21. The judge was obviously aware of the appellant’s medical conditions and was as a consequence fully entitled to conclude that the NHS had been repeatedly used, which in turn meant that there had been significant reliance on public funds. The judge was plainly entitled to conclude that the appellant did not speak English and that this was a negative factor. I cannot understand why the grounds suggest that this was wrong. There was a delay of 2 ½ years in the respondent’s decision-making process, but I am satisfied the judge had that in mind and that it was never remotely capable of constituting a significant factor.

22. I do not wish to unfairly criticise Mr Malik, but I am bound to say that the grounds put forward in this appeal appear to have been drafted with little regard to the concept of what constitutes an error of law and what the judge has actually said in his decision.

Anonymity
23. I maintain the anonymity direction previously made on the basis that this case concerns a claim for international protection.

Notice of Decision
The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of an error on a point of law.

The appellant’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal is dismissed and the decision of the First-tier Tribunal stands.

H Norton-Taylor
Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

Dated: 14 October 2025