Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-004401

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/55582/2024
LP/06985/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 11th of December 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE DEAKIN

Between

EX
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr J Gazzain, Counsel, instructed by Riverside Legal Services t/a MSR Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr M Parvar, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 19 November 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, [the appellant] (and/or any member of his family, expert, witness or other person the Tribunal considers should not be identified) 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 (and/or other person). Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction
1. The Appellant is a national of Albania. His protection claim was refused by the Secretary of State in a refusal letter dated 20 February 2024. He appealed against that refusal to the First-tier Tribunal pursuant to s.82(1) of the Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002.
2. The Appellant’s appeal was dismissed by First-tier Judge Fern in a decision promulgated on 27 August 2025. The Appellant sought permission to appeal against that determination on four grounds. By decision of 19 September 2025, Judge Haria granted the Appellant permission to appeal on all grounds. This determination is concerned with that appeal.
Background
3. The Appellant claims to have a well-founded fear of persecution in Albania at the hands of an organised criminal gang led by “DD”. The Appellant claims that he was targeted as a result of his father’s refusal to smuggle contraband into a prison. The Appellant claims that, following this refusal, he received threats for some two months. As a result he moved town, where he remained between February and October 2019. The Appellant claims he then changed his last name and returned to Tirana. The Appellant claims that in around January 2020 his father sought protection from a former Deputy Director of Tirana police and that his father was advised to cooperate with the gang for the sake of his family. The Appellant claims to have been assaulted and threatened before fleeing to Italy where he remained until April 2021. The Appellant claims to have returned to Albania where he hid in the mountains of Tirana until he was discovered by the gang in January 2022 and held by them for 3 days. The Appellant claims his father was again threatened and shown images of the Appellant’s injuries. The Appellant claims he escaped, changed his name, and left Albania in February 2024.
4. The Appellant made an application for asylum on 2 February 2023. This application was refused on 20 February 2024. The Appellant appealed this refusal.
5. The Appellant was represented by Mr Slatter of counsel at his first instance appeal. No Home Office presenting officer attended. The Judge considered that “a fair hearing could be held as the Respondent had provided full written submissions” (FtT Determination §15).
6. At §34 of his determination the Judge found that there ”…were numerous fundamental inconsistencies, implausibilities, and lack of detail in the Appellant’s evidence suggesting an overriding lack of truthfulness” and listed thirteen points in support of this conclusion. The Judge accordingly determined at §41 that:
Overall, even when considering all the evidence in the round and applying the lower standard of proof to all elements of the claim, I find that the core of the Appellant’s account of events in Albania is not reasonably likely to be true. Put another way, it is not a real possibility that the balance of the account given by the Appellant is true.
7. The Judge went on to conclude at §42:
Further, the Appellant has not shown that there are substantial grounds for believing that, if returned, he would face a real risk of suffering serious harm and that he is unable or, owing to such risk, unwilling to avail himself of the protection of the country of return.
8. The Judge went on to give detailed consideration to Article 8 ECHR at §§43-65 of her determination. It is not necessary to address this further in the present appeal.
9. The Appellant advances four grounds of appeal against the Judge’s determination, namely:

a. The Judge’s “adverse credibility findings were procedurally unfair”;
b. The Judge erred “by making material errors of fact”;
c. The Judge erred “by failing to make findings with respect to core elements of the Appellant’s claim”;
d. The Judge “materially erred by failing to give reasons or any adequate reasons for finding on material matters and failing to give sufficient weight to material matters”.
10. I address each ground in turn below.
Ground 1: Procedural Unfairness
11. Counsel for the Appellant argues that the Appellant was given no opportunity to provide an explanation of the matters listed by the Judge at §34 of her determination as supporting her conclusion that the Appellant’s evidence had been fundamentally inconsistent and implausible and that it suggested an “overriding lack of truthfulness”. He produced counsel’s note of the questions asked by the Judge at first instance together with a supporting witness statement from the barrister appearing at first instance in the following terms:

1. I was instructed to represent the appellant at his appeal hearing before Judge C Fern
at Hatton Cross on 14 August 2025.
2. I refer to the 2 typed pages in document headed ‘[EX] - Hearing note of questions
asked by Judge’ and confirm it as an accurate note of the notes I took at the hearing.
3. I provided the handwritten notes to the solicitor acting for the appellant by e-mail on
28 August 2025 and the typed version of the notes by e-mail on 1 Sep 2025.
12. Counsel for the Appellant maintains that the Judge’s failure to put the matters listed to the Appellant at §34 was procedurally unfair.
13. At the start of the hearing the Secretary of State’s representative indicated that he intended to concede that the Judge’s failure to put the matters relied on at §34 to the Appellant had been procedurally unfair. However, when it became clear that the Secretary of State’s representative had not had sight of potentially relevant material, I adjourned the hearing to enable him to properly consider the documents in this case and reconsider his position.
14. When the appeal recommenced, the Secretary of State’s representative advanced a more nuanced submission. He argued that it was not clear from barrister’s witness statement and note of Judge’s questioning that the note captured all the questions asked by the Judge. It was therefore possible that the Judge had afforded the Appellant an opportunity to comment on the matters giving rise to concern. He invited me to dismiss Ground 1 on this basis. However, he went on to submit, should I find that the note did accurately capture the questions asked by the Judge, then the Secretary of State conceded that the procedure adopted by the Judge had been unfair.
15. I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that counsel’s note does record a broadly complete record of the questions asked by Judge at first instance:

a. While I accept that the witness statement does not state in terms that the note is “complete”, Mr Slatter does state that it is “an accurate note of the notes I took at the hearing”. While the note is highly unlikely to be a verbatim record of proceedings, were the barrister to be aware that his note contained significant omissions, I would expect this to be stated in terms.
b. The fact that the Judge’s record of evidence at §18 of her determination closely tracks the questions and answers recorded in counsel’s note. In my view this provides strong support for the Appellant’s position.
c. Having recorded the evidence at §18, the Judge went on to state at §19 that “There was no other evidence presented.” This too suggests that that the Judge did not go on to explore matters not captured in counsel’s note.
16. Given the concession made by the Secretary of State’s representative, I accordingly find that there was procedural unfairness in this case and find in favour of the Appellant on Ground 1.
17. I will address whether this error was material to the outcome of the appeal below.
Ground 2: Error of Fact
18. Counsel for the Appellant argues that the Judge made two errors of fact. First, he argues, the Judge held that “’The Appellant stated on interview that he had no passport as he lost it in his travels to the UK. On appeal he provided two passports, in two different names (EX and EXh)’” whereas the Appellant had, in fact, provided a copy of his passport as produced from a picture on his telephone. Second he argues that the Judge held that the Appellant “says that he and SM married briefly so that A could use her surname; in interview he said he was married for 2.5 years” whereas there is no record in the evidence of the Appellant’s having stated that he “married briefly”. Counsel for the Appellant maintains that both these errors are material is they were explicitly relied on by the Judge at §34 to support his finding that the Appellant was not truthful in the evidence he gave.
19. The Secretary of State’s representative suggested that it was open to the Judge to conclude that, as a picture of the Appellant’s passport had been produced, the passport was not lost. That was not, however, the basis on which the Judge reached her conclusion and, in any event, I am not satisfied that such an inference would have been reasonably open to the Judge. In my judgment the Judge erred in concluding that the Appellant had provided two passports.
20. The Secretary of State’s representative accepted that the Appellant had not referred to his marriage being “brief” and, in my view, the Judge erred in so finding.
21. Again, I will address whether these errors were material below.
Ground 3: Failure to make necessary findings
22. Counsel for the Appellant argued that the Judge failed to make findings as to the Appellant’s core claims that he had been held by the criminal gang for some three days and that he had been assaulted.
23. I do not accept that the Judge erred in this way. The Judge was plainly aware the Appellant’s claims that he had been detained for three days (see §20 of the Determination) and that the Appellant had suffered violence (see §34, penultimate bullet). The Judge went on to reject the entirety of the Appellant’s account of events in Albania (see §41 of the Determination). The Judge’s conclusion, and the reasons for that conclusion, are clear. I do not accept that that the Judge erred in failing set out her findings with greater granularity.
Ground 4: Failure to give reasons
24. Counsel for the Appellant argues that, at §34 of his determination, the Judge failed to distinguish which aspects of the claim he found to be inconsistent, implausible and/or lacking in detail and, further, that the Judge failed to give adequate reasons for her findings.
25. In his Practice Direction from the Senior President of Tribunals: Reasons for decisions (June 4, 2024) the Senior President explained that:
Where reasons are given, they must always be adequate, clear, appropriately concise, and focused upon the principal controversial issues on which the outcome of the case has turned. To be adequate, the reasons for a judicial decision must explain to the parties why they have won and lost. The reasons must enable the reader to understand why the matter was decided as it was and what conclusions were reached on the main issues in dispute… (§5, footnotes omitted).
26. In my judgment the Judge’s reasoning at §34 of the Determination amply satisfies these requirements. The Judge explains that the she finds numerous inconsistencies, implausibilities and a lack of detail in the Appellant’s account, she explains that this suggests an overriding lack of truthfulness in the Appellant’s account, and then goes on to list the factors on which relies to support this conclusion. The reason why reliance is placed on each bullet-pointed example is, in my judgment, clear from the context.
27. I do not accept that the Appellant’s Ground 4 discloses any error law.
Materiality
28. For the reasons set out above, I find that the Judge erred in law as asserted in Grounds 1 and 2. Were these findings material to the outcome of the Judge’s decision?
29. In my judgment the errors found are material to the outcome of the Judge’s decision.
30. The errors in Ground 1 and Ground 2 both go to the reliability of the Judge’s finding that the Appellant’s account of his experiences in Albania was not credible. That conclusion formed the basis of the Judge’s rejection of the Appellant’s protection claim (see §41 of the Determination).
31. The Secretary of State’s representative is correct that the Judge considered whether the Appellant would benefit from sufficiency of protection and could internally relocate (see §§38-42 of the Determination) but I do not accept that this renders the Judge’s errors when rejecting the factual basis of Appellant’s claim immaterial. That would only be the case if the Judge had proceeded to consider sufficiency of protection and/or internal relocation on the basis that the Appellant’s account had been accepted. It is clear from §§39-42 of the determination that the Judge did not do so. I note in particular that the Judge did not address at all the Appellant’s claims that he had not, in fact, been safe in Albania or the alleged reach of the organised criminal gang. It therefore appears that the Judge assessed the issues of internal relocation and sufficiency of protection on the basis that the Appellant’s account was not credible. And, for the reasons set out above, this conclusion is vitiated by an error of law.
32. For the reasons set out above, I therefore find that the Judge’s determination to contain material errors of law and I set it aside in its entirety. As these errors concern procedural fairness it is appropriate for this matter to be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for rehearing. No findings are preserved.

Notice of Decision

1. The Appellant’s appeal is allowed on Grounds 1 and 2.
2. First-tier Judge Fern’s determination is set aside in its entirety.
3. The appeal is to be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for redetermination by a different Judge.

Andrew Deakin

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

8 December 2025