Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-004088 & UI-2025-005258

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/68148/2023
LP/01448/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 4th of December 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LODATO

Between

JM
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms Carrington-Wolf, counsel
For the Respondent: Mr Diwnwyz, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Phoenix House (Bradford) on 19 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
Introduction
1. I have decided to maintain the anonymity order originally made in these proceedings by the First-tier Tribunal because the underlying claim involves international protection issues in that the appellant claims to fear persecution or serious harm on return to Iraq. In reaching this decision, I am mindful of the fundamental principle of open justice, but I am satisfied, taking the appellant’s case at its highest for these purposes, that the potential grave risks outweigh the rights of the public to know of his identity.
2. The appellant appeals with permission against the decision, dated 15 June 2025, of a judge of the First-tier Tribunal Judge (‘the judge’) to dismiss the appeal on international protection and human rights grounds.
Background
3. The appellant’s claim for protection centred on his account to have been targeted by the powerful family of a women with whom he shared an intimate relationship. Her family were of a higher social status than the appellant’s in the Iraqi Kurdish Region (‘IKR’) and rejected the proposals of marriage made on his behalf by his family.
Appeal to the First-tier Tribunal
4. The appellant appealed against the refusal of the claim. The appeal was heard by the judge on 2 June 2025. The judge assessed the central factual claim between paragraphs [16]-[24]. It does not overburden my decision to set out this fact-finding assessment in full:
I do not fund it credible and reliable that such a person described as the girl’s father would allow her to attend university to study as a teacher with a view to taking up employment as a teacher when she finished her university degree. Due to his position in the Asayish and traditional values it is likely she would always be accompanied outside her home for the sake of the honour of his family and also as a bodyguard to ensure her safety given her father’s position.
The Appellant stated in his WS that he knew the girl was from a wealthy family due to the house she lived in and on being told by her about her father’s position in the Asayish and that her family held traditional values. He also confirmed this in his oral testimony when he accepted that where a member of a traditional family dishonours it then that person will be killed by them.
The Appellant, on his own account, is illiterate having received a very basic primary school education until year five having failed his examinations. He sold ice cream from his motorbike around his local community in Erbil. In light of the Kurdish patriarchal culture in which he lived it is not credible that he could ever have genuinely aspired to marrying the girl he claims to have fallen in love with and that she would marry him. His claim that she would want to marry him is inconsistent with what he stated at paragraph 20 of his witness statement that she wanted to travel around the world and visit places such as Spain and that she loved shopping and going for picnics with her family. She would understand the way she would be able to travel and indulge her wish to shop would be to marry into an equally wealthy and powerful family and not this Appellant whom her father would never allow her to marry.
The above is also wholly inconsistent with his account that they exchanged “rude” pictures of each other. Given the Kurdish culture that the whole of the family’s honour is dependent on the reputation of the ladies in it, which results in families such as that he described as his girlfriend’s severely restricting their lives and having to obey without question the wishes of the male head of the family in comparison to western culture, it is not credible and reliable that she would enter into the relationship the Appellant claims they had and, in particular, the exchange of rude photographs. They had never actually met socially or romantically in person other than when she bought ice creams from him. I do not find it credible and reliable that she would have trusted the Appellant not to show his friends photographs of her that would result in rumours and gossip in their home area when their homes were only ten minutes apart.
This is particularly so in light of the vastly different social status of their two families and her father’s position in the Asayish notwithstanding that he is now retired. In my judgment, his retirement would not significantly reduce his influence and powerful contacts with the authorities in the Erbil Governorate. Going a little further down the street from her home to catch beyond the range of her home’s CCTV cameras would not prevent neighbours observing what would likely be regarded as inappropriately intimate contact and inform her family.
The Appellant’s account that her home had CCTV cameras covering the outside of it together with the girl’s family being traditional in its morals and culture and her father’s standing in the community leads me to conclude that she would not exchange “rude” photographs with the Appellant as she would know her father would be highly likely to check the contents of her mobile phone if, indeed, she was allowed to have one, either openly or covertly given his previous position in the Asayish.
If the Appellant truly loved her and he knew that if their relationship was discovered she would be regarded as dishonouring her family and that she would be killed and that he risked being killed himself he would not have put both their lives at risk as claimed. I reject his account that they “took the risk” and that he thought that if her father wanted his daughter to be happy he would agree to their marrying is not simply him being naive as claimed. It is also not credible that [i]f they took the risk of being killed he would not try to find out what had happened to her at the hands of her family once the relationship was discovered and her family had tortured his father into agreeing to hand his son over to them so they could kill or cause him serious harm.
I conclude, for the reasons set out above, on the evidence taken as a whole, the Appellant is not credible and reliable in his claim to have had a secret unauthorised relationship with the girl and that he is a member of a PSG as a result.
I find that the Appellant has failed to show, to the low standard required, he is at risk of serious harm, death or persecution from anyone, including his own family, on return to Erbil by direct flight.
Appeal to the Upper Tribunal
5. The appellant applied for permission to appeal in reliance on the following grounds:
i. The judge erred in failing to resolve whether the appellant was at risk on account of his imputed political opinion.
ii. The judge misapplied reported authority in relation to the feasibility of enforced return via Baghdad.
iii. The judge failed to consider the appellant’s witness statement when making credibility findings.
iv. The judge failed to consider objective information in relation to honour crimes and cultural norms in the IKR.
v. The judge unlawfully speculated about the appellant’s girlfriend’s lifestyle, family restrictions, and socio-economic factors.
vi. The judge wrongly expected corroboration in relation to the appellant’s ability to retrieve his passport.
6. In a decision dated 2 September 2025, First-tier Tribunal Le Grys granted permission for grounds (iii)-(vi) to be argued. He said this about ground (v):
[…] It is reasonably arguable that the Judge has engaged in speculation at various points throughout the decision, for example at [16] when concluding that the girl would not have been allowed to attend university, and was likely to have always been accompanied and given a bodyguard. It is arguably unclear from the reasons as to whether the Tribunal reached these conclusions based on the evidence before it, or whether it has instead substituted its own views as to what is likely. Given that these findings of fact are carried forward into the overall analysis, it is arguable that any error in this regard will have adversely impacted the Tribunal’s final conclusions.
7. The appellant renewed the application for permission to the Upper Tribunal. I heard brief submissions from the parties about ground (ii) and granted permission for both grounds (i) and (ii) to be argued at the error of law hearing which commenced immediately after Mr Diwnwyz indicated that he was ready to proceed.
8. I heard oral submissions from both parties. Mr Diwnwyz indicated that he would not seek to persuade me that ground (v) should not succeed. He stopped short of conceding the appeal on that ground but made it plain that he could see the force of the points which were made about the speculative chain of reasoning which was not connected to any articulated evidence or country background information. I indicated at the hearing that I was minded to allow the appeal on the strength of ground (v) and would set aside the decision in full without preserving any findings of fact. Having heard submissions on disposal, I also indicated that it would be appropriate to remit the matter to the FTT to be heard de novo given that a full fact-finding exercise was required. These are my reasons for reaching the conclusions I alluded to at the hearing.
Discussion
9. The gravamen of ground (v) is that the judge indulged in a series of speculations about what might be expected of the appellant’s partner and her family in the IKR. Ground (v) could equally be characterised as the wrongful use of plausibility factors as a yardstick to measure credibility. In deciding this ground of appeal, I am satisfied that I need look no further than the recent and authoritative articulation of the relevant principles in the judgment of the Court of Appeal in MAH (Egypt) v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 216; [2023] Imm. A.R. 713. In his summary and synthesis of the leading authorities, Singh LJ explained how fact-finders should approach their task in the assessment of a protection claim. At [52], and between [58] and [63], the following key observations were made:
52. It is also well established that the standard required is less than a 50% chance of persecution occurring. Even a 10% chance that an applicant will face persecution for a Convention reason may satisfy the relevant test: see Cardozo-Fonseca, at 440, cited by Lord Keith in Sivakumaran, at 994; and Chan Yee Kin v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (1989) 169 CLR 379, a decision of the High Court of Australia given by Mason CJ, cited with approval by Brooke LJ in Karanakaran v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2000] 2 All ER 449, at 464.
[…]
58.  In SB (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 160, at para. 44, Green LJ said that appellate courts will accord due deference to the fact-finder who has assessed an applicant's credibility. But the appellate court needs to be able to satisfy itself that the fact finder has at least identified the most relevant pieces of evidence and given sufficient reasons (which might be quite concise) for accepting or rejecting it.
59.  At para. 46, Green LJ said:
"In cases (such as the present) where the credibility of the appellant is in issue courts adopt a variety of different evaluative techniques to assess the evidence. The court will for instance consider: (i) the consistency (or otherwise) of accounts given to investigators at different points in time; (ii) the consistency (or otherwise) of an appellant's narrative case for asylum with his actual conduct at earlier stages and periods in time; (iii) whether, on the facts found or agreed which are incontrovertible, the appellant is a person who can be categorised as a risk if returned, and, if so, as to the nature and extent of that risk (taking account of applicable Country Guidance); (iv) the adequacy (or by contrast paucity) of evidence on relevant issues that, logically, the appellant should be able to adduce in order to support his or her case ; and (v), the overall plausibility of an appellant's account." (Emphasis added)
60.  At para. 47, Green LJ made it clear that this list was not intended to be exhaustive. Nor, I would add, is it a "checklist", every part of which has to be satisfied in every case. Everything depends on all the circumstances of each individual case. […]
61.  At para. 59 of its judgment, the UT referred to the decision of this Court in Y v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 1223, at paras. 25-27. As Keene LJ said at para. 25, the tribunal of fact should be cautious before finding an account to be inherently incredible, because there is a considerable risk that it will be over influenced by its own views of what is or is not plausible, and those views will have inevitably been influenced by its own background in this country and by the customs and ways of our own society. It is therefore important that it should seek to view an appellant's account of events in the context of conditions in the country from which the appellant comes.
62.  However, as Keene LJ continued at para. 26, none of this means that the tribunal is required to take at face value an account of facts proffered by an appellant no matter how contrary to common sense and experience of human behaviour that account may be. The decision-maker is not expected to suspend its own judgment. In appropriate cases, it is entitled to find that an account of events is so far-fetched and contrary to reason as to be incapable of belief. Keene LJ supported that proposition by reference to the decision of Lord Brodie, sitting in the Outer House of the Court of Session, in Awala [2005] CSOH 73, at para. 24.
63.  In that passage, Lord Brodie said that a tribunal of fact making an adverse finding on credibility must only do so on reasonably drawn inferences and not simply on conjecture or speculation. Inferences concerning the plausibility of evidence must have a basis in that evidence. An applicant's testimony should not be lightly or readily dismissed and when it is reasons must be given. Nevertheless, the tribunal of fact need not necessarily accept an applicant's account simply because it is not contradicted at the relevant hearing. The tribunal is entitled to make reasonable findings based on implausibilities, common sense and rationality, and may reject evidence if it is not consistent "with the probabilities affecting the case as a whole." Because the reference to the word "probabilities" may be misunderstood in the present context, where the lower standard of proof applies, it is important to read that passage in context.
10. When considering the above principles against the fact-finding analysis, I find it impossible to conclude that the judge did not fall into analytical legal error in the manner set out by Singh LJ in reaching plausibility findings which had no articulated connection to any objective country background information. This is clear to see in the findings that the appellant’s girlfriend would not be permitted by her traditional and high-powered family to attend university. Mr Diwnwyz fairly observed that the country background information strongly indicated that there were multiple universities in Erbil which counted significant numbers of women among their student cohort. The judge did not explain what the evidential foundation was for his findings that the appellant’s partner would always be accompanied outside the home, that cultural values meant that it was inherently unlikely that the couple would exchange “rude” messages or that her family would inevitably reject a marriage proposal such that the offer would never be credibly made by his family. The point taken against the appellant that his claimed partner would have been hardly likely to wish to marry a man who could not provide the international travel she desired struck me as just as impressionistic as the points discussed above.
11. In my judgement, the fact-finding analysis became overly reliant on unsupported speculations about what is plausible in Erbil in the IKR. There is a place for consideration of plausibility in the assessment of credibility, but it is a judicial tool to be used with caution so that it does not hinge on the kind of evidentially unsupported speculations which are to be seen here.
12. I allow the appeal on ground (v). As the flawed and unlawful findings go to the centrepiece of the protection claim, I am minded to set aside the whole decision without preserving any findings of fact. It is unnecessary to consider the remaining grounds of appeal in substance in view of the decision I have reached on ground (v).
Disposal
13. The parties spoke as one at the hearing that the appeal ought to be remitted to the FTT to decide de novo because of the broad sweep of fact-finding which remains to be undertaken. I agree.

Notice of Decision
The decision involved a material error of law, and I set it aside. I preserve no findings of fact and remit the matter to the FTT to decide de novo.

P Lodato

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

24 November 2025