Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-005160
First-tier Tribunal Nos: PA/50789/2024
LP/03441/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 10th March 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE SAINI

Between

SA
(ANONYMITY ORDER maintained)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms S Alban, Legal Executive; Seren Legal Practice
For the Respondent: Mr P Lawson, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 25th February 2026

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the Appellant and/or any member of their family are 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 their family. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The Appellant appeals against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Chana, dismissing his appeal on the basis of his protection and human rights claim.
2. The Appellant applied for permission to appeal, which was granted by First-tier Tribunal Judge Mulready in the following terms:
“1. The application is in time. The grounds are that the judge made errors of fact, did not consider the fact that the appellant was a minor at the time he completed the statement of evidence form, erred in required corroborative evidence, failed to consider that the student visa was created by an agent to help the appellant flee persecution and to claim asylum in the UK, did not refer to any evidence to support the finding that it is not credible that children are arrested by the Turkish authorities, failed to consider that the appellant would be returned as an adult, made a contradictory finding, failed to give adequate reasons, and failed to make findings where required.
2. There are a number of findings of fact in the Decision which, when considered alongside the detail of the evidence provided in the grounds, appear to be erroneous. The Decision makes clear these findings have contributed to the adverse credibility finding against the appellant, which is material to the outcome of the appeal. The rest of the grounds are also arguable, and so permission is granted on all of them”.
3. The Secretary of State provided a detailed Rule 24 response and indicated that the appeal was resisted. I have taken that document into account alongside the representatives’ further oral submissions before me.
Findings
4. At the close of the hearing, I indicated that I would reserve my decision, which I shall now give.
5. I am only just satisfied, and so find, that there are material errors of law in the decision, requiring it to be set aside and to be reheard at a de novo hearing for the following reasons.
6. In respect of Ground 1, the grounds complain that there are several mistakes of fact made by the First-tier Tribunal Judge, the first being that at paragraph 11 of the judge’s findings she criticised the Appellant for giving inconsistent evidence as he mentions he was never arrested or wanted for criminal or terrorist offences in any country which runs counter to the remainder of his evidence and goes to his credibility and that of his claim. The difficulty with this finding is that the judge does not identify anywhere where she discovered the inconsistent evidence given by the Appellant. The Grounds of Appeal suggest that it could be from the SEF form that the Appellant’s previous representatives submitted on his behalf, which is of a tick box format and simply put, may have been hurriedly completed and incorrectly ticked. It is equally true that the SEF was accompanied by an explanatory statement from the Appellant (signed and dated 9th November 2022, the same date the SEF form was completed), which clearly mentions he was detained by the authorities. Mr Lawson for the Respondent appeared to agree that it could be the SEF form that is the source of the inconsistency, however, the Rule 24 response provided by his colleague suggested that the inconsistent evidence arose from the Refusal Letter dated 19th December 2023. Turning to the Refusal Letter (at page 7 of the Respondent’s Bundle) the suggestion that there was inconsistency in the Appellant not declaring he had been arrested was because this was not disclosed in his Visa Application Form for when he travelled to the United Kingdom. Regardless of where the inconsistency arose, I do not find that the unsourced and critical finding is a safe one. If it was in the SEF, then the judge has failed to take into account that the Appellant provided a statement alongside the tick box form which stated he was detained; whereas, if the inconsistency arose in the Refusal Letter and was adopted by the judge at paragraph 11 of the decision without more, this would demonstrate a failure to grapple with the alleged inconsistency between the patently fraudulent visa application and the Appellant’s candid answers in his asylum interview as the pre-flight VAF was prepared by an agent for the purpose of getting a visa at any cost, whereas the latter was a candid post-flight interview. In any event, this is a fundamental point that goes to the heart of the Appellant’s claim and his credibility, and given the lack of citation by the judge for the source of this inconsistency, and my other concerns over resolution of the inconsistency, I find that this represents a material error of law in the judge’s assessment of the Appellant’s credibility and that of his claim from early on in the judge’s findings which go to the heart of the judge’s overall assessment.
7. Turning to the next point made in the grounds that the judge commits a factual error at paragraph 12 in finding that the Appellant’s claim was not credible because it was not possible that the Appellant would be arrested after attending a press release for the detention of Selahattin Demirtas on 4th November 2021, as this was five years after the person in question was imprisoned. However, the judge has failed to consider and reconcile that this was the fifth anniversary of the person being jailed on 4th November 2016, as this was not a contemporaneous press conference which had somehow belatedly taken place five years after the arrest. The Rule 24 response from the Secretary of State concedes this error at paragraph 6(a) of that document, and this represents a further material error of law and a material mistake of fact.
8. Turning to the next point raised, namely, that the judge committed a factual error at paragraph 13 of the decision in misapprehending when the Appellant stated his father began his visa application. Whilst rightly noting that the visa application was made on 1st June 2022, and the authorities raided the Appellant’s house on 10th June and apprehended the father, it does not necessarily mean that this was the catalyst for the Appellant applying to leave Turkey. I am fortified in this view as the Appellant canvassed this point in his interview. However, I also note that there were inconsistencies in the Appellant’s interview as to when the arrest occurred, but I also note that the Appellant was then not asked further about this by the Home Office in interview or thereafter (see AIR 139 at page 267 of the consolidated bundle). Therefore, this does represent an error, but only a minor one.
9. The next error raised by the Grounds of Appeal is that the judge errs at paragraph 16 in her findings in stating that the visa was issued in May 2022 and that the Appellant left Turkey some 47 days later on 27th July 2022. The Rule 24 response accepts that this is a mistake of fact as the entry clearance visa in the Respondent’s Bundle demonstrated it was in fact only issued on 20th July 2022, and the Appellant could only leave Turkey thereafter and therefore left 7 days later, as opposed to the 47 days found by the judge. This represents a further material error of law in the judge’s decision making as the judge wrongly presumed the Appellant did not leave Turkey until several weeks after he could which falsely contributed to her concluding the Appellant was not at risk.
10. The final point raised in Ground 1 is that at paragraph 21 the judge made a further material mistake of fact in that she found that it was only at the First-tier Tribunal hearing that the Appellant attempted to associate himself with the PKK and that he had never previously claimed the authorities had accused him of helping that group. The Rule 24 response again concedes that this is a factual error because this was mentioned by the Appellant in his interview several times. I find this is a further material error of law in the judge’s decision making.
11. Standing back at this point and examining the several material errors of law found in Ground 1 alone, I am already at this stage concerned that the decision contains several material errors of law such that it should be set aside; however, for the sake of completeness, I go on to consider the remaining errors.
12. Turning to Ground 2 it is argued that the judge errs at paragraphs 14, 15 and 17 in her findings as she failed to consider the fact that the Appellant’s student visa was created by an agent and therefore any deceit or dishonesty in that application should not be compared with his candid or honest answers given in his asylum claim and interviews. I find this is a valid criticism of the findings given that the Appellant stated in his unaccompanied child welfare form on 12th September 2022 (before his SEF was even considered) (at page 18 of the Respondent’s Bundle), that when he applied for his visa to the UK, his intention in leaving was for his safety, and that he travelled to the UK to save his life and his intention on arrival was also to save his life and he desired asylum from as early as when his father and the agent applied for his visa to come to the UK. Therefore, without taking into account this evidence or providing reasons why it should be rejected and the VAF details rightly contrasted with the Appellant’s answers in his interview, I find that this represents a perverse finding in the judge’s decision making.
13. Turning to Ground 3 and the argument that the judge has failed to give reasons at paragraphs 10, 18, 19 and 22, I do not find that the judge has erred in failing to identify any objective evidence regarding the finding that it is not credible that children arrested by the authorities would be considered to be a threat. No objective evidence was referred to and the judge was plainly aware of the relevant jurisprudence. In relation to the findings at paragraph 19, I do not find that there is an error in relation to the judge’s observation of the background information on the Turkish Embassy into the passenger’s name being checked against the centralised database. I do however find that the judge has failed to give reasons why, in the same breath, she has not taken into account, the evidence given by the Appellant at AIR 149, 150 and 151, namely that the agent had implied that arrangements were made for him to pass through the airport unmolested by the authorities. Without considering that evidence and providing reasons why that should be rejected (if that were to be the judge’s view), this finding is unreasoned and thus incomplete on an important point, particularly as the judge was not wrong to observe what she did about the GBTS records at paragraph 22 of her decision. In relation to the Appellant’s argument that the judge erred at paragraph 10 in stating that the Appellant’s evidence was that they knew the family name, it is argued that he did not say in court that he was recognised by his face. There is no witness statement nor transcript of the proceedings for the First-tier Tribunal to support this submission, and therefore I do not find that there is any error of law established in this discrete point. Therefore aside from the important but not, on its own material, point at paragraph 19 regarding the ability to pass through the airport, I do not find that Ground 3 has established material errors of law.
14. Turning finally to Ground 4, I find that the judge has erred in failing to take account of the Appellant’s political activities at paragraph 25 of the decision, as the judge has not considered the places and locations of the activities depicted in the photographs from the Appellant, and therefore without applying scrutiny to those points, the finding that the Appellant has not shared the photographs online does not demonstrate a finding that is sustainable in relation to his sur place activities, particularly bearing in mind jurisprudence on this point from the Upper Tribunal (see BA (Demonstrators in Britain – risk on return) Iran CG [2011] UKUT 36 (IAC), for example).
15. In light of the above findings, I find that the Appellant has established material errors of law in relation to Grounds 1 and 2 and further errors of law which are discrete and nuanced in relation to Grounds 3 and 4.
16. In light of those findings, and considering the errors of law holistically, I find that the decision contains sufficient errors of law, which are material to the outcome of the judge’s decision, such that the decision should be set aside in its entirety.
Notice of Decision
17. The appeal to the Upper Tribunal is allowed.
18. The appeal is to be remitted to be heard by any Judge of the First-tier Tribunal other than Judge Chana.

P. Saini

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

3 March 2026