Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Numbers:UI-2025-004470
UI-2025-004478
UI-2025-004477
First-tier Tribunal Number: PA/63808/2024
PA/63811/2024
PA/63801/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued

On 28th of January 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE WOODCRAFT

Between

OMS
RS
DS
(Anonymity orders made)
Appellants
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr C Holmes, Counsel
For the Respondent: Ms E Blackburn, Home Office Presenting Officer

DECISION AND REASONS

Heard by CVP at Field House on 22 January 2026
The First Appellant
1. The first appellant, who I shall refer to henceforth as the appellant is a citizen of Iraq born on 1 July 1975 and is of Kurdish ethnicity. He appeals against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 21 July 2025 which had dismissed his appeal against a decision of the respondent dated 30 April 2024. The respondent’s decision in turn had refused the appellant’s claim for international protection which he made on 8 January 2023. There are two dependents to the appellant’s claim, his wife RS and his daughter DS who was aged 16 at the date of the appeal in the First-tier Tribunal. The appellant arrived in the United Kingdom illegally on a lorry on 6 December 2022 having previously been removed in 2004.
Order Regarding Anonymity.
2. Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant and his two dependents are granted anonymity, and is to be referred to in these proceedings by the initials OMS. 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 Appellant’s Case
3. The judge set out a summary of the appellant’s case at [5] of the determination:
“The appellant fears persecution and serious harm from his wife’s brother on return to Iraq due to (a) the appellant’s refusal to influence his stepbrother’s daughter to marry his wife’s brother and (b) the appellant and his wife being the victim of “honour crime” and persecution. The appellant says that his wife’s brothers want the couple to divorce as an act of honour to their family and [the couple’s] refusal to do so is incompatible with the honour code within Kurdish society and families, with a real risk that they will be killed.”
4. The appellant also expressed his fear that he would not be able to return to Iraq because of a lack of identity documentation. The judge dismissed that ground of appeal and there was no onward appeal against that dismissal. The issue in the case was thus the credibility of the appellant’s account. The respondent did not accept that the account was true but if it was the appellant could not be expected to rely on the Kurdish authorities in the Kurdish Region of Iraq (KRI) or the Iraqi authorities (in the rest of Iraq) for protection.
The Decision at First Instance
5. At [21] the judge stated he was “not satisfied that the appellant’s account of being at risk of an honour killing from his brother-in-law is at all reliable or credible.” At [23] the judge concluded that: “The appellant has not established on the balance of probabilities that he has a characteristic that could cause him to fear persecution as a member of a particular social group. He has not established on balance that he has compromised family honour. He has not established on balance that he in fact fears persecution as a result of compromising family honour. Therefore the appellant has not established that it is reasonably likely that he would be persecuted for a Convention reason on return to the KRI. Given my findings, it is unnecessary for me to consider issues of sufficiency of protection or internal relocation.”
6. The appellants were in contact with family members in Iraq and: “even if the family had not received INID cards before leaving for the UK, INID cards had been applied for and the necessary formalities had been completed before they left Iraq” [22]. At [25] the judge concluded in relation to the documentation issue that “the appellant has access to the CSID cards – either through family with whom they remain in contact in KRI who can send these to him, or he has the CSID cards with him in the UK – and that the family can therefore safely travel from their point of return in the KRI to their home area” The appellant and his family would not be returning to the KRI without identity documents. The judge dismissed the appeal.
The Onward Appeal
7. The appellant appealed against the decision to dismiss the asylum claim arising out of a claimed risk of an honour killing on grounds settled by counsel who had appeared at first instance. There was no appeal against the decision to dismiss the appeal in relation to identity documentation. The onward appeal challenged the judge’s decision on one ground only namely that certain of the Judge’s discrete conclusions were irrational. The grounds made two points arising out of [18] of the determination in support of this contention. The appellant's evidence was that his wife's family wanted the appellant and wife to separate because his wife's family felt that the appellant had disrespected them by not assisting in the marriage referred to (see paragraph 3 above) going ahead. The judge wrote:
“The appellant was asked if he and his wife split up, how would this help his brother-in-law. The appellant responded that he did not know. This is internally inconsistent with his witness statement, in which the appellant said (paragraph 26) that “they feel that my blood family has disrespected them by refusing the marriage proposal””
8. The grounds argued that “the question asked of the Appellant here (how something would ‘help’ his brother-in-law)” was “a materially different topic from that discussed in the witness statement, which concerns the Appellant’s subjective belief as to the brother-in-law’s motivation … These two concepts are materially different. The brother-in-law, motivated by revenge, may well expect to receive no benefit from his actions. More to the point, the Appellant may not perceive the brother-in-law as standing to gain any real benefit from his actions (i.e. he will not be helped). The decision of the Judge to treat these two materially different matters as in some way “inconsistent” with each other is, in the circumstances, arguably irrational.
9. The second point argued was because the judge had taken against the appellant that there was no background evidence to support the concept that was being asserted in this case. The concept being that a woman might be forced or threatened with violence in an attempt to coerce her to divorce, contrary to the wishes of her husband. The grounds countered that: “the [judge’s] point takes matters nowhere. Honour based violence is, by its very nature, an irrational phenomenon and it is unlikely that background evidence will cover every circumstance which might give rise to it.”
10. The First-tier refused permission to appeal and the appellant renewed his appeal to the Upper Tribunal adding that “to suggest that a person is a liar because the peculiar mindset held by an abusive relative of theirs is not held by others is, in the circumstances, arguably irrational too”
11. Permission was granted by the Upper Tribunal who stated: “Whilst the threshold for perversity is undoubtedly high, it is arguable that Judge Power’s findings as to the credibility of the first appellant’s account were perverse or irrational. As contended in the concise original and renewal grounds, it is arguable that the inconsistencies on which the judge seized were not properly described as such.”
12. The respondent filed a Rule 24 response to the grant stating: “The findings of the judge were properly open to [her] on the evidence before [her]. The grounds raise no arguable error of law.” The grounds were disagreements with the judge’s findings rather than indicating errors of law.
The Hearing Before Me
13. In consequence of the grant of permission the matter came before me to determine in the first place whether there was a material error of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal such that it fell to be set aside. If there was then I would make directions on the rehearing of the appeal. If there was not the decision at first instance would stand.
14. Counsel argued that the point in contention was a relatively narrow one, fleshed out in the grounds. The tribunal should allow the appellants appeal and remit the matter back to the First-tier for rehearing because the case turned on credibility.
15. For the respondent the presenting officer argued that what the judge was driving at was to explore what the divorce of the appellant from his wife would achieve. The situation was not complex at all. If there was any concern as to whether the appellant had understood the line of questioning in cross examination that point could have been raised at the hearing at the time. The judge was entitled to take the point that there was no background evidence to support the existence of the type of honour crime that the appellant was describing. This was a novel situation and it was incumbent upon the appellant to produce relevant material even if it was not an exact match. The grounds were a disagreement with the judge’s decision.
16. In conclusion counsel rebutted the implied criticism that the appellant’s case had not been fully conducted at first instance as counsel had no way of knowing how the judge would treat the evidence that the questions were driving at.
Discussion and Findings
17. This is a reasons-based appeal against a decision of the First-tier tribunal on the basis that the First-tier's treatment of the evidence was irrational. As the Upper Tribunal pointed out in granting permission the test of irrationality presents a high threshold to cross for the person making the allegation. The appellant had previously made an application for asylum on a different ground when he claimed because of his father’s land dispute. It was recorded by the judge at first instance (see [6]) that that earlier claim was no longer being pursued. Instead, the appellant was arguing that he and his family could not return safely to the KRI because of their fear of an honour killing. The basis of the fear was an unusual one and it does not appear to be suggested in this case that there have been any other cases based on similar facts.
18. The judge was concerned with the credibility of the appellant and whether he was correctly describing his claimed fear or whether the claim for asylum had in effect been fabricated. The judge was criticised for referring to a lack of supporting evidence but the burden of proof lay on the appellant to establish that the circumstances he, appellant, was describing were plausible. The appellant’s case was that because the appellant had not assisted the marriage plans of his wife's family they were determined to break up the marriage between the appellant and his wife. The judge did not find that to be at all a plausible scenario and the absence of any evidence that such a situation has arisen before lent weight to the judge’s criticism of the appellant’s case.
19. The grounds took the point that there were two quite different things between on the one hand the appellant saying he did not know what benefit there would be to his wife's family if he divorced his wife and on the other hand the answer the appellant gave about the motive which his wife's family had for taking their revenge upon the appellant. Even if it is correct that they are two separate matters which have been conflated the strange way that the wife's family wish to obtain satisfaction for the dishonour they claim to have suffered (insisting that the appellant and his wife divorce) is so strange that it was reasonable for the judge to have expected some supporting evidence to be produced if the scenario depicted by the appellant were to have any plausibility at all. The judge found that no such evidence had been presented. It was no answer to the criticism made by the judge to say that the desire for an honour killing is so irrational that one cannot expect every form it might take to be documented. The burden of proof rested upon the appellant. He was putting forward the idea that he was being pressured to divorce his wife and he therefore had to demonstrate his alleged fear was credible within the cultural context of the KRI as the respondent submitted to me.
20. I remind myself that when assessing credibility the judge had the benefit of seeing the appellant and his dependant give evidence and was in a position to form a view thereon. The judge documented the inconsistencies which arose during the appellant’s evidence. For example, at [18] the judge noted that “the country information evidence indicates that the appellant’s niece would potentially be at risk of honour violence, for refusing a marriage proposal. However, the appellant’s account is that his niece and her father have been able to live in Iraq unharmed. This is inconsistent with the external evidence.”
21. It is correct that the point at issue (whether the judge has come to an irrational conclusion) is a narrow one. The judge felt that the appellant could and should have provided such evidence to support his claim beyond his own and his family's assertion. The grounds of onward appeal do not in my view get anywhere close to indicating an irrational approach to the evidence in the case by this judge. She has carefully analysed the evidence and given cogent reasons for her decision pointing out where the appellant’s evidence has been found not to be credible. I therefore dismiss the onward appeal.
Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of an error of law and I uphold the decision to dismiss the Appellant’s appeal
Appellant’s appeal dismissed

Signed this 22nd day of January 2026

……………………………………………….
Judge Woodcraft
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge