Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003853

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/59761/2023
LP/01899/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 27th of January 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’BRIEN

Between

IH
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Did not attend and was not represented
For the Respondent: Ms S Lacointe, Seniour Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 18 November 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 appeals with permission against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (FtT) dated 9 April 2025 to dismiss his appeal against the respondent's decision dated 17 October 2023 to refuse his asylum claim.

2. The appellant’s claim in a nutshell was that he had been a member of the student wing of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), that he had been beaten on two occasions, and that he was the subject of an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Bangladesh. Consequently, he would be at risk on return. The respondent accepted that the appellant was a member of the BNP but not that there was adverse interest from the authorities.

3. In its decision, the FtT considered credibility to be central to the case, found the appellant not to be credible and dismissed his appeal.

4. Permission to appeal was refused by the FtT and a renewed application was made to the Upper Tribunal. The same grounds were relied on. They were in short that the FtT judge unfairly refused to admit new evidence or alternatively to adjourn the hearing, the judge made adverse credibility findings without proper basis, the judge failed to consider holistically the reliability of the documentary evidence, and failed properly to assess proportionality under Article 8 (in particular with respect to obstacles to reintegration).

5. Permission to appeal was granted by Upper Tribunal Judge Perkins. He considered it arguable that the FtT had refused to admit new evidence or to adjourn to gather new evidence without balancing the usefulness of such evidence against the effect of consequential delay. He also thought it arguable that the judge had failed to consider the documentary evidence in the round. However, he did note that the appellant would have to show that the errors were material. Nevertheless, permission was granted on all grounds.

6. There was no appearance by or on behalf of the appellant. I contacted the solicitors on record, who confirmed that they had not been instructed to attend but that the appellant was aware of the hearing. I confirmed that no application had been made to adjourn the hearing nor any other contact from the appellant explaining his absence. I was invited by Ms Lacointe to proceed in the appellant’s absence, and was satisfied that it was appropriate in all the circumstances to do so in the interests of justice.

Ground 3

7. It is convenient to deal with ground 3 first, as my conclusions on that ground inform my view on the materiality of the other grounds.

8. That ground notes, without any apparent challenge, the judge’s observation at [62] that, ‘It is well established that false and fraudulently obtained documents are easily available in Bangladesh.’ Instead, it is asserted that the judge ‘should have considered the evidence in the round’ but instead ‘rejected the evidence without convincing reasons’.

9. However, the judge expressly records at [62] that the available evidence had been considered ‘in the round’. He did so having referred expressly to all of the (admitted) documentation put before the FtT. There is nothing in the decision to suggest that the judge then failed to consider the reliability of the documents ‘in the round’. As for the judge’s reasoning, he refers, as acknowledged in the grounds, to the ready availability in Bangladesh of false documents and the appellant’s own history of dishonesty. In short, the judge’s reasons for rejecting as unreliable to documents relied upon by appellant were perfectly adequate to understand that conclusion.

10. Ground 3 therefore fails.

Ground 1

11. The relevant procedural history is set out in the FtT decision at [8] to [14]. In short, an application made ahead of the hearing to adjourn to obtain additional evidence was refused by a legal officer and on review by a judge. As it was, the evidence in question was uploaded mere days later on 20 March 2025 and translations of certain documents on 21 March 2025, with no application to rely on the evidence but merely assertions that the material was not available before and that the documents in question arrived late and required translation, correspondingly.

12. An application to rely on the late documents was made at the hearing, and was refused by the FtT judge, as well as the consequential application to adjourn the hearing. The FtT’s consideration of those applications is to be found at [11] to [14} thus:

‘11. Mr Sayem made an application to include late evidence. He stated that the representatives were unaware that the appellant was working independently to collect new evidence relating to a change of circumstances in February 2025. According to Mr Sayem the representatives uploaded the new evidence on the evening of 20 March 2025 and morning of 21 March 2025 as soon as they were provided to them. Mr Gabriel objected to the application.

12. The application was refused. The core of the claim can be considered along with the sur place activities considered within the respondent’s review. Fairness and justice apply to both parties. The appellant lodged an appeal notice in November 2021. He was aware of the hearing date from November 2024.

13. The appellant’s adjournment application was refused twice before the late evidence application. The appellant originally claimed that there has been a change of circumstances in August 2024. He now claims that there has been a further change of circumstances in February 2025. There was no reasonable explanation for either delay.

14. It is difficult to accept that the appellant’s representatives had no knowledge of the latest change of circumstances between 18 March 2025 and 20 March 2025 at minimum. The hearing can proceed fairly and justly on the available evidence. Mr Sayem’s subsequent adjournment application was refused for the same reasons.’

13. The evidence in question comprised a 167-pp pdf of ‘objective’ evidence, a 36-pp pdf of ‘subjective’ evidence, including a supplementary witness statement from the appellant, and translations of an affidavit from the appellant’s mother dated 19 March 2025 and an undated newspaper article concerning the appellant.

14. The first 133 pages of objective evidence date from 2024, with the remaining pages being more recent online articles and a Wikipedia page about the current administration. The subjective evidence comprised, in addition to the appellant’s supplementary witness statement: his passport, his brother’s birth certificate, an arrest warrant dated 17 February 2025, an expert report dated 13 March 2025, his mother’s affidavit and newspaper article of which translations were subsequently provided and photographs said to show vandalism.

15. It is fair to note, as did Judge Perkins, that the judge makes no express finding on the extent to which the new documents could assist the appellant or how delay would disadvantage the respondent. However, the judge does make clear at [12] and again at [14] that the requirements of fairness and justice are the considerations he was to have in mind. It can reasonably be inferred that the judge had in mind the likelihood of an adjournment being necessary if the additional documents were admitted, which indeed was sought in the alternative to admission on the day of the documents. It goes without saying that the respondent’s resources in preparing for and presenting the case on the day would have been wasted. The judge was entitled to take into account the lateness of the production of the documents and the absence of any reasonable explanation, certainly for the vast majority of the new documents. As for prejudice caused to the appellant by refusal, the mother’s affidavit does not expressly deal with any recent material event, and there is no suggestion either in the decision or the grounds that the appellant was prevented from referring in oral evidence to recent events in Bangladesh. I am not therefore persuaded that the judge’s refusal caused any material unfairness such as to amount to an error of law.

16. Even if I had been persuaded that the judge erred in his approach to the appellant’s application to rely on the new documents, I am satisfied that it was an immaterial error.

17. Given the judge’s findings on the official documents already relied on (dealt with above under ground 3), there is inevitable that the judge would have rejected the new arrest warrant and the newspaper article as unreliable for the same reasons. I note also that no explanation was given for why a new arrest warrant would be issued when it was claimed that one had already been issued on 19 June 2022. Similarly, given the judge’s finding at [67] that appellant’s sister has access to the same information shared between him and their parents, and the judge’s finding that the appellant had no credible explanation for failing to call her (see [66] to [68]), there is simply no realistic chance that the judge would have considered the mother’s affidavit to be of any material assistance either. The photographs were not expressly introduced by the appellant’s witness statement or his mother’s affidavit, and so would have taken his case no further, in particular given the wider adverse findings on credibility.

18. As for the supplementary expert report and recent background evidence, they would have been material only if the judge had been satisfied of the appellant’s account of having come to the adverse attention of the authorities. That claim was, of course, soundly rejected.

19. For the sake of completeness, even if I had found that the FtT’s decision to refuse to admit the new evidence amounted to a material error of law such that its overall conclusions needed to be set aside to be made again in light of that new evidence, I note that the standard directions put the appellant on notice that such remaking ordinarily would take place today. He chose not to attend today to deal with any of the issues I have covered briefly above. Therefore, for those reasons, I would have found that the new evidence, considered in the round, did not reliably establish (even to the lower standard) that he was of adverse interest to the authorities, or indeed to anyone from whom he could not seek state protection or relocate to avoid.

20. I need deal only briefly with the challenge to the judge’s refusal to adjourn the hearing, having refused to admit the late evidence. It does not appear to have been suggested at the time, nor is it suggested in the grounds, that the adjournment was for any purpose other than to rely in a subsequent hearing on the above evidence. Having found that there was no error, and certainly no material error of law, in refusing to admit that evidence, it follows that refusing to adjourn was similarly at worst an immaterial error.

Ground 2

21. This ground asserts that the FtT judge’s credibility assessment ‘is wrong’. It is a transparent disagreement with conclusions which are more than adequately reasoned and supported in a comprehensive analysis over 25 paragraphs from [48] to [72]

22. Particular criticism is made of the judge’s finding at [63] that it was not credible that the appellant would have access to original recordings of video content made for demonstrations in April and June 2024. However, the adverse credibility finding was open to the judge, given in particular the appellant’s evidence was that these clips were made by friends [32].

23. Ground 2 therefore fails.

Ground 4

24. Having rejected the factual basis of the appellant’s claim to be at risk in Bangladesh, the judge’s reasoning between [74] and [79] on Article 8 in general and obstacles to reintegration in particular was manifestly adequate and the consequential conclusions were clearly open to the judge.

25. Consequentially, ground 4 fails.

26. For the reasons given above, I dismiss this appeal

Notice of Decision

1. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of an error of law (or alternatively a material error of law) and consequentially stands undisturbed.

Sean O’Brien

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

22 January 2026