Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-005197
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/02697/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 11 March 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE DOYLE

Between

NZ
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr F Faraj of Adam Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms L Clewley, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House, on 24 February 2026

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.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. I make an anonymity direction because this appeal arises from the appellant’s protection claim.
2. This is an appeal by the Appellant against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Howard, dated 04/09/2025, which dismissed the Appellant’s appeal on all grounds.
Background
3. The Appellant is a Kurdish citizen of Iran. He claimed asylum in the UK on 21/02/2023. The Respondent refused the Appellant’s application on 07/05/2024.
The Judge’s Decision
4. The Appellant appealed to the First-tier Tribunal. On 04/09/2025 First-tier Tribunal Judge Howard (“the Judge”) dismissed the Appellant’s appeal.
5. The Appellant lodged grounds of appeal, and, on 15/10/2025, First-tier Tribunal Judge Singer granted permission to appeal. He said
2. The application argues in the grounds that the Tribunal materially erred in law by (1) failing to give adequate reasoning regarding the rejection of credibility, and (2) failing to adequately consider risk on return in particular at the pinch point of the airport.
3. I remind myself that courts should not rush to find misdirections simply because they might have reached a different conclusion on the facts or expressed themselves differently. 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. When it comes to reasons given by the tribunal, the Appellate 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.
4. It is arguable that the Judge made findings on plausibility, at [30]-[35], for example rejecting the Appellant’s suggested explanation for the behaviour of his would-be persecutors in Iran, which were not adequately reasoned by being anchored to relevant country information evidence. In Y v SSHD [2006] EWCA Civ 1223 Keene LJ stated that:
“The fundamental [legal principle applicable to the approach that an IJ should adopt towards issues of credibility] is that he should be cautious before finding an account to be inherently incredible, because there is a considerable risk that he will be over influenced by his own views on what is or is not plausible, and those views will have inevitably been influenced by his own background in this country and by the customs and ways of our own society. It is therefore important that he should seek to view an appellant's account of events, as Mr Singh rightly argues, in the context of conditions in the country from which the appellant comes. The dangers were well described in an article by Sir Thomas Bingham, as he then was, in 1985 in a passage quoted by the IAT in Kasolo v SSHD (13190), the passage being taken from an article in Current Legal Problems. Sir Thomas Bingham said this: An English judge may have, or think he has, a shrewd idea of how a Lloyds Broker or a Bristol wholesaler, or a Norfolk farmer, might react in some situation which is canvassed in the course of a case but he may, and I think should, feel very much more uncertain about the reactions of a Nigerian merchant, or an Indian ships' engineer, or a Yugoslav banker. Or even, to take a more homely example, a Sikh shopkeeper trading in Bradford. No judge worth his salt could possibly assume that men of different nationalities, educations, trades, experience, creeds and temperaments would act as he would have done or even – which may be quite different – in accordance with his concept of what a reasonable man would have done.”
5. The arguability of Ground 1 impacts on Ground 2. It is also arguable that in his assessment of sur place activity, the Judge failed to make adequate findings regarding the Appellant’s behaviour outside the Iranian embassy at [48], which impacted upon his assessment of risk on return.
6. Permission is granted on both grounds.
The Hearing
6. For the appellant, Mr Faraj moved the grounds of appeal. He said that the Judge’s findings on credibility are not safe. Mr Faraj argued that the appellant’s lack of knowledge of the workings of the Iranian secret service should not be held against him, and that the Judge conflated plausibility with credibility.
7. Mr Faraj emphasised the second ground of appeal and said that the Judge failed to properly consider the pinch point of return and the hair trigger reaction identified in both SSH and HR (illegal exit: failed asylum seeker) Iran CG [2016] UKUT 00308 (IAC) and HB (Kurds) v SSHD [2018] UKUT 430 (IAC). He told me that the decision contains material errors of law and asked me to set the decision aside.
8. For the respondent, Ms Clewley resisted the appeal. Ms Clewley relied on the respondent’s rule 24 note and said that the decision does not contain an error of law, material or otherwise. Ms Clewley told me that the Judge carried out a careful assessment of all of the evidence before finding that the appellant was neither a credible nor a reliable witness. Ms Clewley reminded me that credibility was a question for the Judge at first instance. She told me that the Judge considered all of the evidence, balancing the country guidance against the appellant’s own evidence, before reaching his conclusions.
9. Ms Clewley said that the Judge took correct guidance from SSH and from HB. She took me to [39] to [47] of the decision and said that there the Judge correctly considers the pinch point of return and the hair trigger reaction. The Judge considered the extent of the appellant’s political activities in the UK, and, at [43], considered the possibility of the Iranian authorities discovering the appellant’s Internet activity. The Judge considered the appellant’s attendance outside the Iranian embassy at [48] of the decision and, at [49], concluded that there was nothing to indicate that the Iranian authorities were aware of the appellant’s attendance outside their embassy.
10. Ms Clewley told me that the Judge carried out a holistic assessment of each strand of evidence and then reached conclusions well within the range of reasonable conclusions available. She asked me to dismiss the appeal and allow the decision to stand.
Analysis
11. The Judge starts his findings of fact at [23] by recording that is not disputed that the appellant is an Iranian Kurd who left Iran illegally. The Judge deals with the appellant’s account of events in Iran between [24] and [35] of the decision. At [35] he concludes that the appellant is not a credible witness.
12. The Judge finds that the appellant is not credible because the appellant was in a demonstration of tens of thousands of people and the appellant could not explain how the authorities would identify him and swiftly trace him to his home address. At [32] the Judge avoids finding that the appellant did not attend public demonstrations in Iran and instead makes a finding that whether the appellant did or did not attend demonstrations, the authorities were never aware of his presence.
13. Credibility is for the Judge at first instance, and the Judge says that having listened to the appellant he finds that there are gaps in the recounted history, and so does not believe the appellant. The Judge is entitled to make that credibility finding.
14. There is more to the second ground of appeal. At [36] and [37] the Judge finds that the appellant has involved himself in anti-Iranian regime political activity in the UK. The Judge finds that the appellant has attended demonstrations and posted political material on his Facebook page, which is public.
15. The Judge considers the risk on return for a low-level political activist using a Facebook account to publish anti-Iranian regime comment. He takes guidance from SSH and from HB. At [39] the Judge finds that the Iranian authorities have no interest in the appellant. The Judge says
he is not someone the authorities will want to question in respect of those sympathies.
16. At [41] the Judge finds that the appellant has established a genuine political profile in the UK. The Judge’s overall finding is that the appellant’s activities are at such a low level that the Iranian authorities know nothing about him, and that is why the Judge dismissed the appellant’s appeal.
17. The error that the Judge makes is that, although he acknowledges the guidance given in SSH and in HB, he does not properly follow the guidance.
18. The Judge finds that the appellant is an Iranian Kurd who left Iran illegally, and who has a genuine political profile in the UK, but the Judge does not explain how he comes to the conclusion the Iranian authorities will not want to question the appellant on return.
19. The Judge does not analyse what is likely to happen at the point of return to an Iranian Kurd who has genuinely been politically active in the UK and has expressed anti regime sentiment.
20. The finding that the appellant
…is not someone the authorities will want to question in respect of those sympathies
is not adequately reasoned. The Judge does not acknowledge the fact that the Appellant (like all arrivals to Iran) will be questioned. The Judge does not acknowledge that as a failed asylum seeker the appellant is likely to be asked about the basis of his claim. Failure to weigh those significant factors creates an incomplete assessment of risk on return, which is a material error of law.
21. The decision errs materially in law. I set it aside.
Remaking the decision
22. The Respondent’s representative suggested that, if I find a material error of law, this case should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for a de novo hearing. The appellant’s representative did not express a view.
23. There is no challenge to the Judge’s findings that the appellant has been politically active in the UK, and that he is politically opposed to the government of Iran. This appeal concerns sur place activity, about which there is no need for further fact finding. There is sufficient material available to enable me to substitute my own decision. The determinative question is risk on return.
24. The accepted facts are that the appellant has publicly aligned himself with a political opposition group. Whether his reasons are heartfelt or cynical is irrelevant. The appellant has created a political profile which places him in opposition to the government of Iran because of his activities in the UK.
25. If the appellant is returned to Iran, he will be unable to conceal his Kurdish identity, or the fact that he left Iran illegally.
26. The Appellant does not have a passport. To be removed to Iran, the appellant will need a laissez passer issued by the Iranian embassy in London. The embassy itself will “carry out security checks concerning the kind of activities the particular person has been involved in while out of Iran”: SSH §7. It will also be aware of the fact that he is a failed asylum seeker: SSH §6. Any information gleaned will be provided to the authorities in Iran ahead of his arrival. He will then be questioned on arrival : SSH §9. The evidence of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) was that this questioning could take a few hours. Whilst the panel in SSH noted, at its §12, that the IOM were there concerned with voluntary returnees, there is no reason to believe that the scrutiny would be any less for an individual subject to forced return. In those circumstances, it is likely that the scrutiny would be all the greater.
27. One of two things will happen following that initial round of questioning. Either the Appellant will be allowed to go on his way, or he will be transferred for a second bout, during which the likelihood of ill-treatment rises to a sufficiently high level to trigger the UK’s obligations under both the Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights.
28. In SSH the Tribunal – there concerned with the relevance of illegal exit – thought the litmus test to be whether “there are any particular concerns arising from their previous activities either in Iran or in the United Kingdom” (at §23). In HB the panel, this time particularly concerned with Kurdish returnees, endorsed that approach, whilst asking decision makers to bear in mind that Kurds are subject to an additional, “heightened scrutiny”. The country guidance given in HB is that the authorities (which includes the officer conducting that first round of questioning):
“…demonstrate what could be described as a ‘hair-trigger’ approach to those suspected of or perceived to be involved in Kurdish political activities or support for Kurdish rights. By ‘hair-trigger’ it means that the threshold for suspicion is low, and the reaction of the authorities is reasonably likely to be extreme”.
29. Applying that guidance to this case, this Appellant cannot safely be removed to Iran. He is a Kurd who left Iran illegally, and who has engaged in activity whilst in the UK that is openly critical of the Iranian regime. On arrival he is going to be questioned. Should he choose to conceal the fact that he has attended protests etc, and he is discovered to have done so, the consequences would be immediately, and obviously, very serious. It is far more likely that he will tell the truth and hope for leniency. Applying the combined guidance in SSH and HB, there remains a reasonable likelihood that he stands little chance of being so lucky. It follows that his appeal must be allowed.

Decision
1. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal promulgated on 04/09/2025 errs materially in law and is set aside
2. The decision in the appeal is remade.
3. The appeal is allowed on Asylum grounds.
4. The appeal is dismissed on humanitarian protection grounds.
5. The appeal is allowed on articles 2 & 3 Human Rights grounds.

Signed Paul Doyle Date 3 March 2026
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Doyle