Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-003981
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/54035/2024
LP/04464/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 24 March 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE JOLLIFFE

Between

AA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr West, Counsel
For the Respondent: Mr Sheikh, Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 11 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

Introduction
1. The appellant is a citizen of Bangladesh born on 22 April 2002. He entered the United Kingdom as a student in January 2023 and claimed asylum in February 2023.
2. The appellant appeals against the decision of First‑tier Tribunal Judge Louveaux (“the FTTJ”) promulgated on 3 July 2025 dismissing his appeal on asylum, humanitarian protection and human‑rights grounds.
3. Permission to appeal was granted by UTJ Rastogi on 2 October 2025. The grant of permission noted that although the grounds were poorly expressed, ground 4 relating to the verification of documentary evidence disclosed an arguable material error of law.

The claim for asylum
4. In the appellant’s claim for asylum, he relied on his alleged involvement with the Bangladesh Jatiotabadi Chatra Dal (JCD), an asserted politically motivated criminal case in Bangladesh, an alleged arrest warrant, and a long‑running inheritance/land dispute with an uncle said to be a local Awami League leader.
5. The respondent refused the claim. The respondent accepted that the appellant had been a low‑level member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s student wing (JCD) but did not accept that he had any significant political profile. The decision letter considered the appellant’s political account to be inconsistent, unsupported, and not credible. It was not accepted that the appellant was of adverse interest to the Awami League.
6. The respondent relied on inconsistencies between interview answers and the fact that claimed events were inconsistent with country information. The decision concluded that the appellant did not have a well‑founded fear of persecution, would not face a real risk on return either from the Bangladeshi authorities or from his uncle, and that sufficiency of state protection and internal relocation remained available. Humanitarian protection and Article 8 grounds were also rejected.

The FTT Decision
7. The FTTJ made extensive adverse credibility findings regarding the appellant’s claim. It noted inconsistent evidence about the appellant’s uncle’s political role. The appellant twice stated in interview that his uncle was a national‑level Awami League leader, but later claimed this had been a misunderstanding and that his uncle was only a local figure. The judge did not believe that the same “mistake” occurred twice.
8. The judge noted that the appellant asserted that his uncle had a political profile, but that the evidence which purported to substantiate this was limited to a single Facebook profile page and some photographs. The judge did not accept that no further objective evidence could be produced if the uncle were genuinely influential.
9. The appellant claimed he had evidence on his phone proving the person in the Facebook profile was his uncle, but had not provided this despite submitting a bundle of nearly 1,000 pages. This also diminished the credibility of his claim.
10. The appellant had stated that his uncle used two totally different names. The judge found that this was inconsistent with country material on nicknames, and did not accept it. The appellant claimed his brother had been “tortured”, but in oral evidence described only threats and one incident of being struck. The judge found that this was an exaggeration.
11. The judge considered the documents relied on by the appellant in support of this claim. He concluded that they were not reliable in light of the ease of obtaining false documents in Bangladesh, and the appellant’s lack of credibility in several other respects.

The appeal – parties’ positions
12. The appellant sought leave to appeal on the basis of 5 pleaded grounds. They were:
i. that the FTT had not applied the reasonable degree of likelihood test;
ii. that the judge’s approach to credibility had been irrational;
iii. that the FTT had failed to give sufficient weight to the appellant’s political profile in determining whether there very significant obstacles to integration for the purposes of paragraph 276ADE(vi);
iv. that the FTT did not properly address the documentary evidence in that it failed to verify the arrest warrant and case documents;
v. that the FTT failed to conduct a lawful Article 8 proportionality assessment, did not consider his private life established in the UK over two years, and failed to apply Razgar, Rhuppiah, and VW (Uganda).
13. The SSHD’s rule 24 response argued that the grounds of appeal disagreed with the FTT judgment without identifying any legal error in it. It stated that the SSHD was not subject to a legal obligation to verify the documents, citing MA (Bangladesh) [2016] EWCA Civ 175, in particular at paragraphs [53]–[54], and that the law was clear that authentication is only required in very rare cases - see QC (verification of documents; Mibanga duty) [2021] UKUT 33 at paragraph [37].
14. The rule 24 response submitted that the decision showed a proper and holistic assessment of the appellant’s documents. The FTT had concluded the documents were not genuine, and the SSHD submitted that that conclusion was properly open to the judge.

Appellant’s submissions
15. Mr West did not draft the Grounds of Appeal which articulated the above 5 points. He pursued a single issue, which was the FTT’s failure to determine whether the respondent had a duty to verify the court and police documents. He did not pursue Grounds 1, 2, 3 or 5 and the appeal proceeded solely on the verification issue.
16. Mr West submitted that the point about verification was raised clearly and that there was no sufficient explanation of why the documents had not been verified, despite a long time having passed before the appeal came before the FTT.
17. He submitted that the duty to verify would not arise in all Bangladesh cases involving court documents – there would be cases where such documents were not central to the appeal. If there was time to verify the documents, then SSHD should do so. Verification was relevant to the weight to be attached to the documents.
18. In terms of the materiality of any error, Mr West submitted that if there was an error in not verifying the documents, it was only necessary to demonstrate that it might have made a difference.
19. On disposal, he submitted the case should be remitted to a different FTT, as the documentary assessment was integral to the credibility assessment, and the findings could not safely stand.

Respondent’s submissions
20. Mr Sheikh submitted that the duty to verify arose only exceptionally, and this was not such a case.
21. He argued that even if verification were possible in the abstract, the respondent was under no duty to undertake it. Both the refusal letter and the review properly cited Tanveer Ahmed.
22. The FTTJ had regard to the documents at paragraph 26, took into account the CPIN evidence, and reached findings open to him.
23. He further submitted that the appellant did not challenge the other credibility findings, which were individually and cumulatively fatal to the claim.
24. If an error were found, he suggested the matter be retained by the Upper Tribunal in light of Presidential Guidance, given the limited nature of the issue.

The legal framework
25. The discretion to verify documents has been considered by the Courts in a number of authorities. In PJ v. SSHD [2014] EWCA Civ 1011 the Court of Appeal stated as follows:
29 In my judgment, there is no basis in domestic or ECHR jurisprudence for the general approach that Mr Martin submitted ought to be adopted whenever local lawyers obtain relevant documents from a domestic court, and thereafter transmit them directly to lawyers in the United Kingdom … Instead, the jurisprudence referred to above does no more than indicate that the circumstances of particular cases may exceptionally necessitate an element of investigation by the national authorities, in order to provide effective protection against mistreatment under article 3 ECHR. It is important to stress, however, that this step will frequently not be feasible or it may be unjustified or disproportionate. In Tanveer Ahmed the court highlighted the cost and logistical difficulties that may be involved, for instance because of the number of documents submitted by some asylum claimants … Furthermore, given the uncertainties that frequently remain following attempts to establish the reliability of documents, if the outcome of any enquiry is likely to be inconclusive this is a highly relevant factor. As the court in Tanveer Ahmed observed, documents should not be viewed in isolation and the evidence needs to be considered in its entirety.
30 Therefore, simply because a relevant document is potentially capable of being verified does not mean that the national authorities have an obligation to take this step. Instead, it may be necessary to make an enquiry in order to verify the authenticity and reliability of a document – depending always on the particular facts of the case – when it is at the centre of the request for protection, and when a simple process of enquiry will conclusively resolve its authenticity and reliability (see Singh v Belgium [101] – [105]). I do not consider that there is any material difference in approach between the decisions in Tanveer Ahmed and Singh v Belgium, in that in the latter case the Strasbourg court simply addressed one of the exceptional situations when national authorities should undertake a process of verification.
26. In MA (Bangladesh) [2016] EWCA Civ 175, the Court stated as follows:
29 PJ (Sri Lanka) permits an approach which is sequential in nature. In determining whether the circumstances of a particular case may necessitate an investigation, national authorities may first consider whether a disputed document is at the centre of the request for protection before proceeding to consider whether a simple process of inquiry will conclusively resolve its authenticity and reliability. If these conditions are satisfied it may be necessary for a national authority to make an enquiry to verify a document. It does not necessarily follow, however, that such a duty will arise; the judgment in PJ (Sri Lanka) makes clear that the evidence, including the documentary evidence, must be considered in its entirety. If the court or tribunal concludes that there was such a duty, it will proceed to consider whether it has been discharged and, if not, it must assess the consequences for the case.
27. The issue was considered by the Upper Tribunal (Lane P and Mr Ockelton V-P) in QC (verification of documents; Mibanga duty) China [2021] UKUT 33 (IAC). The salient parts of the lengthy headnote are as follows:
(1) An obligation on the respondent to take steps to verify the authenticity of the document relied on by an appellant will arise only exceptionally (in the sense of rarely). This will be where the document is central to the claim; can easily be authenticated; and where (as in Singh v Belgium (Application No. 33210/11)), authentication is unlikely to leave any “live” issue as to the reliability of its contents … In all cases, it remains the task of the judicial fact-finder to assess the document’s relevance to the claim in the light of, and by reference to, the rest of the evidence …
(3) What the case law reveals is that the judicial fact-finder has a duty to make his or her decision by reference to all the relevant evidence and needs to show in their decision that they have done so. The actual way in which the fact-finder goes about this task is a matter for them. As has been pointed out, one has to start somewhere. At the end of the day, what matters is whether the decision contains legally adequate reasons for the outcome.

Discussion
28. I am satisfied that the FTTJ’s decision does not contain a material error of law.
29. The starting point is that the appellant does not dispute the extensive adverse credibility findings made against him by the FTTJ – Mr West explicitly did not seek to argue the second ground of appeal.
30. In my view that was a realistic and sensible position to have taken, given the extensive and cogently reasoned nature of those findings at paragraphs 18-24 of the judgment. Those findings did not depend upon the reliability or unreliability of documents. They were based on inconsistencies in the appellant’s evidence, his inability to prove his uncle’s claimed status within the Awami League or that he was in fact related to this claimed uncle, and his inability to substantiate his claim that his uncle had tortured his brother and thereby made him mentally unstable. The judge also found that his credibility was damaged by section 8 of the 2004 Act, and by the fact that he claimed for the first time in his oral evidence that he was able to leave Bangladesh despite the existence of an arrest warrant because he had used a middle man or agent to bribe the authorities.
31. These findings about the appellant’s lack of credibility are independent of any issue about documentary verification. It should be noted that the last point about his credibility being damaged by using bribes to leave the country would become more weighty and more damaging to the appellant’s credibility if the arrest warrant had been verified as true.
32. In those circumstances, I do not consider that the documents could be said to have been central to the claim for protection - at most they were one part of the evidential picture, to be considered in the context of multiple adverse credibility findings which were not related to or contingent on the authenticity or inauthenticity of the documents. The duty to verify did not arise.
33. It is therefore not necessary for me to determine whether it would have been easy to verify the documents and whether doing so would have been unlikely to have left any live issue about their contents. However, I have serious reservations in particular about the latter point.
34. Standing back and reviewing the judgment as a whole, I have considered whether the judge considered all the evidence in the round and gave legally adequate reasons for the decision, as required by QC. In my view the judge clearly did.
35. At paragraphs 28-35 the FTTJ found that even taking the appellant’s case at its highest, he was only ever a low level member of the BNP. Since the Awami League is no longer in power, the risk he would face has therefore diminished further. These findings are unchallenged in this appeal.
36. In those circumstances, if, contrary to my judgment above, it were said there was legal error in relation to the verification issue, I consider that any such error was not material to the outcome of the appeal.
37. It has taken me longer to promulgate this judgment than I would have wished. This is because my wife gave birth to our daughter about 7 weeks earlier than her scheduled due date.

Disposal
38. I dismiss the appeal.

Notice of Decision
1. The decision of the First‑tier Tribunal did not involve the making of a material error of law.
2. The decision stands.

John Jolliffe

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

23 March 2026