Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-004207
UI-2025-005102

First-tier Tribunal Nos: PA/65998/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 12th November 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RUDDICK

Between

AG
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms E. Atas, instructed by MBM Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr M. Parvar, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 6 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 her. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The First-tier Tribunal (“FTT”) made an anonymity order in this case because the appellant has made a claim for international protection. I consider that it is appropriate that the order continue because the UK’s obligations towards persons seeking international protection outweigh the public interest in knowing the precise details of this appellant’s identity.
2. The appellant is a citizen of the Philippines who has made a claim for international protection in the UK on the grounds that she is at real risk of domestic violence from her ex-partner. The respondent accepted that she had been subjected to domestic violence but refused the claim on the grounds that she would have access to protection from the police or could, in the alternative, relocate safely and reasonable elsewhere in the Philippines. The appellant appealed, and in a decision dated 18 July 2025, the FTT dismissed her appeal.
3. The appellant applied for permission to appeal on three grounds:
(i) “Significant errors of fact arising from inaccurate and inadequate consideration of evidence on core material issue.” The appellant said that her ex-partner’s father was a police officer. The FTT found she had given no details of his rank or of his claimed corruption; it was asserted in the grounds that she had.
(ii) “Mistaken inference from oral evidence contrary to all other evidence and respondent’s concession; manifestly mistaken resulting finding regarding risk to appellant in home area on return.“ The evidence here concerned whether the appellant had said that the her ex-partner’s threats and violence ended when she moved in with her parents, as found by the FTT. It was asserted in the grounds that she had said that the violence had continued until she left the Philippines two years later and was, in fact, one reason she sought work overseas;
(iii) “Failure to consider properly or at all the content of and submissions on country material relevant to the issue of sufficiency of protection; Home Office CPIN assessments followed uncritically as if they are Country Guidance.”
4. On 8 September 2025, a different judge of the FTT granted permission. The grant was headed “Permission to appeal is granted on ground 2”, but the heading did not state that permission was limited to that ground or that it was refused on Grounds One and Three. The Reasons section of the decision did not say that Grounds One or Three were not arguable but rather that the permission judge was “less persuaded” by them. No reasons were given as to why Ground Three was not persuasive.
5. On 17 September 2025, the respondent filed a Rule 24 response, setting out a brief summary of her reasons for opposing the appeal on all three grounds, but primarily focussing on Ground One.
6. On 3 November 2025, the appellant filed a renewed application for permission to appeal on Grounds One and Three. On the same day, I issued directions to the parties in the following terms:
“2. The FTT decision granting permission to appeal can be read as being confined to Ground Two, as it is entitled “Permission to appeal is granted on ground 2.” However, the language of the decision is unclear, as there is no formal refusal of permission on Grounds One and Three. The FTT judge who granted permission on Ground Two merely says “I am less persuaded by the other Grounds” and “I am not persuaded” on Ground Three. As the standard for a grant of permission is arguability, it is far from clear that FTT judge has applied the right test. Moreover, the FTT Judge’s statement that they were “less persuaded” by Grounds One and Three would appear to be precisely the type of ambiguous statement found in Safi & Ors (permission to appeal decisions) [2018] UKUT 388 (IAC) to be consistent with a grant of permission on all grounds. In addition, it is arguable that the FTT judge has failed to give any reasons for refusing permission on Ground Three. […]
“4. The appellant has today filed a renewed application for permission to appeal on all grounds. Given the lateness of the application, the ambiguity of the FTT permission decision, and the potential overlap between the grounds, I will deal with the issue of what grounds of appeal can be pursued before me as a preliminary issue on the day of the hearing
“5. Both sides are directed to be prepared to address that issue at the hearing and, should I decide that Grounds One and Three fall to be considered, to proceed to address those grounds at the hearing.”
7. The hearing then came before me on the morning of 6 November 2025.
8. At the beginning of the hearing, Mr Parvar informed me that he and Ms Atas had discussed the appeal and that they were in agreement that all grounds of appeal were before me, and that the appeal should be allowed on all grounds and remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for a fresh hearing on all issues in front of any other judge.
9. I proceeded to allow the appeal and remit it to the FTT and gave a brief statement of my reasons. I now set out those reasons below.
10. I agree that the FTT’s finding (at [11(h)], [11](l)] and [11](n)]) that the appellant’s partner had stopped subjecting her to violence two years before she left the Philippines, when she moved in with her parents, was irrational. It was not supported by any of the evidence before the FtT. The appellant’s consistent account, corroborated by handwritten statements from several family members, was that the violence had continued until she left the Philippines, including while she was living in her parents’ home. The respondent had broadly accepted the appellant’s account of being a victim of domestic violence in the refusal decision, and the FTT nowhere said it was going behind that acceptance or that it disbelieved this aspect of her account. It was therefore irrational to find that the violence had ended two years before she left the Philippines.
11. With regard to whether the appellant’s ex-partner’s father was a powerful police officer, I consider that the reasons the FtT gave for finding that he was not were not open to it on the evidence. Here too, the FTT said that its reasons were based on the appellant’s own account, in which, according to the FTT, the appellant had failed to identify his rank or give any examples of his corrupt practices ([11(d]) other than that he “did her a favour several years ago” ([11(e)]). However, she had in fact both given his rank and limited examples of corrupt activities she claimed to have seen him engage in, such as collecting payments from small shopkeepers.
12. In her Rule 24 response, the respondent made submissions as to why it would have been open to the FTT to find that the ex-partners’ father did not have a “position of influence”, even having taken into account all of the appellant’s evidence. The problem with the decision as written, however, is that is clearly not what the FTT did. It came to the conclusion advocated for by the respondent, but for reasons that were not based in the evidence before it.
13. Finally, it is clear that the FTT’s findings on internal relocation and sufficiency of protection rested in part on the findings that the appellant was able to escape her partner’s violence simply by moving in with her parents and that his father had no influence with the police: [11(l)-(p)]. The conclusions on internal relocation and sufficiency of protection will therefore have to be remade on the basis of new factual findings that are based in the evidence before the FTT.
14. I also agree that the FTT misdirected itself in law when it stated that the “answer” to the issues of sufficiency of protection and internal relocation was “found in the respondent’s CPIN” and then quoted two paragraphs from the “assessment” section of the CPIN. This is for several reasons. First, the FTT was required to decide the issues after having regard to all of the material evidence before it, and the respondent’s CPIN was not the only country evidence before it. Although the FTT might have had good reasons for preferring the CPIN to the independent evidence relied on by the appellant (some of which appears dated), the language used, read literally, suggests that the FTT was content to simply “find” the answer in the CPIN without looking anywhere else. I take into account, however, that FTT judges must be assumed to know the law and to have applied it, such that this infelicitous use of language and failure to mention any of the other evidence would not in itself be sufficient to establish an error of law.
15. What is more troubling is that the FTT based its decision not on the country evidence in the CPIN, but on the assessment section, which is not evidence. It thus failed to act in accordance with the Upper Tribunal’s guidance about the nature of the respondent’s CPINs. As set out in KK and RS (Sur place activities: risk) Sri Lanka CG [2021] UKUT 00130 (IAC) at [301]:
“[…] we regard the “Assessment” section [of the CPIN] as constituting a statement of the respondent’s guidance to her caseworkers on a number of thematically-arranged issues. The CPIN is simply evidence of the respondent’s position as it was at the date of its publication […]. The guidance to caseworkers may be relevant in any given case where the respondent seeks to put forward an argument that is inconsistent with it. As regards the “Country information” section, we evaluate the source materials set out therein on their own merits in the usual manner and as part of the overall evidence before us.”
16. Similarly, in Roba (OLF - MB confirmed) Ethiopia CG [2022] UKUT 00001 (IAC) at [83]-[85], the Upper Tribunal drew a distinction between the “country information” section of a CPIN (and other similar government reports, such as DFAT reports) and the section setting out the “policy position of the relevant government”. The panel made it clear that their decision was based on the former.
17. For these reasons the decision of the FTT contained material errors of law requiring it to be set aside.
18. I have taken into account the guidance set out in Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 00046 (IAC) and AEB v SSHD [2022] EWCA Civ 1512, as well as the Practice Statement of 11 June 2018, and I consider that remittal is appropriate given the extensive fact-finding required.

Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 18 July 2025 was vitiated by material errors of law and is set aside in its entirety.
The appeal is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for a fresh hearing on all issues, before any other judge.

E. Ruddick

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

7 November 2025