Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-004211

First-tier Tribunal No: HU/52187/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 13th of January 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MAHMOOD

Between

EFREM HAILE MEHAREZGHI
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

ENTRY CLEARANCE OFFICER
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms A Chaudhry of Immigration Legal Advice Centre
For the Respondent: Mrs C Bird, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Bradford on 28 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. The parties may apply on notice to vary this order.

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction
1. This is my oral decision which I delivered at the hearing today.
2. In this matter the Appellant, a national of Eritrea, had sought permission to appeal against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Turner (“the Judge”) dated 8 July 2025 whereby the learned Judge had dismissed the Appellant’s appeal against the Respondent’s decision to refuse him entry clearance.
Appellant’s Grounds of Appeal and the Grant of Permission to Appeal
3. Grounds of appeal were submitted by the Appellant and were considered by the Judge herself. The Judge had granted permission by way of a decision dated 9 September 2025 on limited grounds. The the Judge said as follows:
“It is argued that the IJ made several adverse findings without giving the Sponsor an opportunity to address them. It is for the Appellant to prove their case and where there is a lack of evidence, the IJ is entitled to conclude that the Appellant has not discharged that burden. However, the grounds do raise two points which should have been put to the Sponsor for explanation but was not, namely how the Appellant supported himself in Uganda and how the money transfers were collected and spent. This may have been material to the overall determination and as such is an arguable error of law”.
The Hearing Before Me
4. I was provided with a bundle for today’s hearing comprising 242 pages including a Rule 15(2) application by the Appellant seeking the admission of further evidence.
5. I heard submissions from both parties.
6. Mrs Bird opposed the Rule 15(2A) application and she also informed me that she relied on a Rule 24 response from the Respondent. That states that the Respondent’s review had raised the issues of lack of evidence demonstrating financial support and that thereby, in effect, the Appellant was ‘on notice’ of the matters which he needed to prove.
7. Ultimately the issue which falls to be considered arises from the Judge’s alternative findings and conclusion. The Judge had said at paragraph 18:
“If I am wrong about the above, the decision is made within the relevant statutory framework for the purpose of securing the economic well-being of the UK. The issue is whether the decision to refuse the Appellant leave to enter the UK is proportionate”.
8. This finding by the Judge was against a background where at paragraph 5 it had been recorded that it had been conceded at the start of the appeal that the Appellant could not meet the Immigration Rules. That was when noting that the Appellant’s sister (living in the UK) did not have settled status and so could not meet the requirements as a Sponsor within the Rules.
9. I had also invited the parties to consider whether the Court of Appeal’s recent decision in IA and Others [2025] EWCA Civ 1516 had any relevance. Ms Chaudhry said that because the Appellant was under 18 at the time of his application, then the Court of Appeal’s judgment had limited relevance because that had dealt with adult relatives.
Consideration and Analysis
10. I remind myself that the expertise of the First-tier Tribunal has been impressed upon the Upper Tribunal for very many years, including more recently in the decision of the Court of Appeal in MH (Bangladesh) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 688 9 June 2025. In particular the judgment of Arnold LJ, with whom Singh and King LJJ agreed. Paragraph 29 makes clear:
“There have been many recent authorities in both the Supreme Court and this Court on the need for appellate courts and tribunals to be cautious before interfering with findings of fact and evaluative assessments by lower courts and tribunals, and in particular specialist tribunals such as the FTT. For present purposes it is sufficient to cite Lord Hamblen’s summary in HA (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKSC 22, [2022] 1 WLR 3784 at [72]:
‘It is well established that judicial caution and restraint is required when considering whether to set aside a decision of a specialist fact finding tribunal. In particular:
(i) They alone are the judges of the facts. Their decisions should be respected unless it is quite clear that they have misdirected themselves in law. It is probable that in understanding and applying the law in their specialised field the tribunal will have got it right. Appellate courts should not rush to find misdirections simply because they might have reached a different conclusion on the facts or expressed themselves differently: see AH (Sudan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2007] UKHL 49; [2008] AC 678 per Baroness Hale of Richmond at para 30.
(ii) Where a relevant point is not expressly mentioned by the tribunal, the court should be slow to infer that it has not been taken into account: see MA (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] UKSC 49; [2011] 2 All ER 65 at para 45 per Sir John Dyson.
(iii) When it comes to the reasons given by the tribunal, the court should exercise judicial restraint and should not assume that the tribunal misdirected itself just because not every step in its reasoning is fully set out: see R (Jones) v First-tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber) [2013] UKSC 19; [2013] 2 AC 48 at para 25 per Lord Hope of Craighead.”
11. The legal test to be met by the Appellant to show a material error of law is to be found in the Court of Appeal’s decision in R (Iran) and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] EWCA Civ 982; [2005] Imm. A.R. 535.
12. Because the Appellant’s sister and another relative are present here in court, I take the opportunity to explain what I have said in non legal terms. First, the hearing before me is not “a start all over again hearing”. It is not the same as the hearing at the First-tier Tribunal. There is a very important framework by which I as the Upper Tribunal Judge have to consider appeals from the First-tier Tribunal. The Upper Tribunal has to consider whether or not the First-tier Tribunal had materially erred in law. The hearing before me is therefore not a rehearing; it is for the Appellant to show that there was a material error of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal Judge. Put another way, stage 1 of the appeal was Judge Turner saying, “I think it is arguable I got it wrong” and whereby she then granted permission to appeal. Stage 2 is me assessing whether the grounds put to the Judge are made out. I have to decide whether or not the arguable error by the Judge was actually an error and I have to decide whether the error was a material error of law.
13. The difficulty for the Appellant is that even though the Judge said she had made an arguable error in the first part of her original decision; she had gone on to consider the alternative. She had at paragraph 18 “Even if I am wrong about the above”. She then went on to conclude, taking the Appellant’s case as its highest, that the result would still be a dismissal of the appeal. Therefore, the Judge did not make a material error of law when dismissing the Appellant’s appeal.
14. I pay tribute to Ms Chaudhry who said and did all she possibly could on behalf of the Appellant and she put her case fairly, appropriately and properly.
15. In the circumstances, because the Judge has dealt with all of the issues which were live before her, I conclude that there is no material error of law in the Judge’s decision.
16. For completeness, even if I had permitted the Appellant’s Rule 15(2A) application, it would still have led to me dismissing this appeal because of the alternative way in which the Judge had set out her proportionality assessment.
17. I know that this decision will be a real disappointment to the Appellant and to his sister, I am obliged to conclude that there is no material error of law in the Judge’s decision. The consequence is that Judge Turner’s dismissal of the Appellant’s appeal stands and the Appellant’s appeal remains dismissed on human rights grounds.
Notice of Decision
The Decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not contain a material error of law.
Therefore, the decision of the First-tier Tribunal which had dismissed the Appellant’s appeal on human rights grounds stands.
I do not make an anonymity order.

Abid Mahmood

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

28 November 2025