Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-005250

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/62252/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 5 February 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE WILDING

Between

AA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE
HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr P Duffy, Legal Representative
For the Respondent: Ms H Gilmour, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 28 January 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 (or other person), likely to lead members of the public to identify the appellant (or other person). Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The Appellant [‘A’] brings this appeal against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Bartlett, [‘the Judge’] who dismissed his appeal for international protection in a decision dated 16 September 2025.

2. A appealed and was granted permission to appeal by Upper Tribunal Judge Lindsley.

Background

3. A is a Pakistani national who claims to be a gay man. This was rejected by the Respondent [‘SSHD’] who found his claim to be vague and lacking in sufficient detail. A appealed to the First-tier Tribunal. His appeal was heard on 15 September 2025 where A attended, along with his claimed partner [‘B’]. Both gave evidence and were cross examined by the SSHD’s Presenting Officer. The only issue before the Judge was whether in fact A is a gay man or not. SSHD accepts that if he was he would face a real risk of persecution on return to Pakistan.

4. The Judge dismissed the appeal on the basis that she did not accept A was gay. Her reasons were as follows:

9. The appellant’s claim is marred by its vague nature. The appellant provided little detail in his asylum interview and his witness statement. Mr Duffy submitted that it was not the appellant’s fault that limited information was provided in the asylum interview because the appellant could only respond to the questions asked and I consider that that is a reasonable submission. However, by the date of the submission of his witness statement the appellant was aware that the respondent had refused his claim and the witness statement was an opportunity for him to put forward his case. I considered that the appellant’s accounts about his sexuality and is about his relationship with [B] are superficial.

10. I find that the photographs are of limited use as the have an appearance of being staged but I also recognise Mr Duffy submission that if the appellant did not submit them he would be criticised.

11. The appellant and [B] appeared as witnesses and gave reasonably consistent answers. Their answers were that they had lived together as housemates and they also worked at the same Indian restaurant. Their relationship started by chance as it both independently went to a gay club and met each other there. Their relationship developed from there. I found this suggestion that they both accidentally met at a gay club without having any idea each other was gay to be totally lacking in credibility.

12. I am not satisfied that the appellant and [B] are any more than house mates and former work colleagues. They have documentation showing that they lived at the same address and they would have as on their own account that they lived as housemates for at least some of the time. I am not satisfied that the relationship went beyond that. Whilst I accept that [B] is gay, I find that he is assisting the appellant in this claim for other reasons than that he believes the appellant is a gay man. I recognise that this is insufficient to find that the appellant is not a gay man as even if this relationship was fabricated he may still be gay.

13. However, the appellant stated that when he came to the United Kingdom he intended to return to Pakistan and I find that this is irreconcilable with his claim to be a gay man given that he knew that homosexuality is prohibited in law and socially stigmatised in Pakistan. In addition, the appellant’s accounts about telling his father and receiving death threats from his father lacks credibility. The appellant’s account that some unknown person phoned him to threaten him from Pakistan also lacks credibility. It is unclear why a person unknown to the appellant would threaten him. If his sexuality was a source of shame to the family then there is no reason why they would have communicated this outside the close family.

14. The appellant stated at the interview that he had text messages from his father but he only sent the men after the asylum interview and I find that that does count damages claim but only slightly.

15. In addition, I find that section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004 acts against the appellant as he entered the United Kingdom in October 2022 and only claimed asylum in March 2023

16. For all of the reasons set out above, I find that the appellant cannot establish that he is a gay man and therefore his claim fails under the Refugee Convention, for humanitarian protection and under articles 2 and 3 ECHR.

17. Mr Duffy stated that there was no independent article 8 claim and therefore the appellant cannot succeed on those grounds either

5. Dissatisfied A appealed and advanced 4 grounds of appeal:

a. The Judge gave inadequate reasons in rejecting A’s account on the basis that his claim “is vague in nature”. The Judge fails to give any reasons for rejecting his account, or why she considers his account as vague.
b. The Judge gave inadequate reasons for finding that it “totally lacking in credibility” that A would only discover B was gay when they met per chance at a nightclub when they had been housemates before then.
c. Whilst accepting that B is a gay man, the Judge failed to give adequate reasons for her finding that B is helping A for other reasons that that he believes that A is a gay man.
d. The Judge gave inadequate reasons, and fails to take into account material evidence, in finding that A’s initial intention to return to Pakistan was irreconcilable with his claim to be gay.

The hearing

6. I heard submissions from both representatives. Mr Duffy relied on his grounds of appeal and succinctly put that this is a case where A simply does not know or understand the reasons why his claim was rejected. The Judge failed to give reasons for her conclusions that he is not a gay man, that his account is vague, that he is not in a relationship with B and that he is not a credible witness.

7. Ms Gilmour urged me to find there was no error of law, she submitted that the decision had to be read as a whole, and that when read together, paragraph’s 9 – 16 give a clear set of reasons for why A’s appeal was dismissed. She submitted it would be wrong to focus on one paragraph or another, rather to read the decision as one, and that the Judge had come to clear findings. She relied on the decision in Azizi (Succinct credibility findings, lies) [2024] UKUT 65 (IAC) at the headnote:

1. A determination in relation to an appeal must deal with the principal controversial issues presented to the judge, and it may be possible in some circumstances to provide adequate reasons in relation to those issues succinctly, provided they deal with the points raised by the party and enable the parties to understand why the decision has been reached.

8. Mr Duffy in response submitted that the SSHD has not identified any actual reason for a finding the Judge came to, that is insufficient. The errors were plainly material as a different Judge could have come to a different decision. The finding as to A’s mindset when he first came to the UK does not save the rest of the decision, as if A is in a relationship with B that is a very strong indicator as to his claimed sexuality.

Decision and reasons

9. I have carefully considered the submissions of both representatives and have considered not only the Judge’s decision with care, but also the evidence that was submitted by both parties. Ultimately, I am persuaded that there is an error of law in the Judge’s decision and that her decision should be set aside. My reasons for this are as follows.

10. The importance of reasons in a decision has been referred to many times by this tribunal and by the higher courts. One such case is that of Simetra Global Assets Ltd & Anor v Ikon Finance Ltd & Ors [2019] EWCA Civ 1413, where the Court of Appeal, having considered a range of authorities, summarised the issue of reasons as follows:

46. Without attempting to be comprehensive or prescriptive, not least because it has been said many times that what is required will depend on the nature of the case and that no universal template is possible, I would make four points which appear from the authorities and which are particularly relevant in this case. First, succinctness is as desirable in a judgment as it is in counsel's submissions, but short judgments must be careful judgments. Second, it is not necessary to deal expressly with every point, but a judge must say enough to show that care has been taken and that the evidence as a whole has been properly considered. Which points need to be dealt with and which can be omitted itself requires an exercise of judgment. Third, the best way to demonstrate the exercise of the necessary care is to make use of "the building blocks of the reasoned judicial process" by identifying the issues which need to be decided, marshalling (however briefly and without needing to recite every point) the evidence which bears on those issues, and giving reasons why the principally relevant evidence is either accepted or rejected as unreliable. Fourth, and in particular, fairness requires that a judge should deal with apparently compelling evidence, where it exists, which is contrary to the conclusion which he proposes to reach and explain why he does not accept it.

47. I would not go so far as to say that a judgment which fails to follow these requirements will necessarily be inadequately reasoned, but if these requirements are not followed the reasoning of the judgment will need to be particularly cogent if it is to satisfy the demands of justice. Otherwise there will be a risk that an appellate court will conclude that the judge has "plainly failed to take the evidence into account".

11. The Upper Tribunal’s decision in Azizi (Succinct credibility findings, lies) [2024] UKUT 65 (IAC) follows suit, and notes in the headnote:

1. A determination in relation to an appeal must deal with the principal controversial issues presented to the judge, and it may be possible in some circumstances to provide adequate reasons in relation to those issues succinctly, provided they deal with the points raised by the party and enable the parties to understand why the decision has been reached.

12. Neither party referred me to MK (duty to give reasons) Pakistan [2013] UKUT 641 (IAC), however I consider this case to be also important in understanding the importance of reasons in a decision. In the headnote, the UT set out:

(1) It is axiomatic that a determination discloses clearly the reasons for a tribunal’s decision.
(2) If a tribunal finds oral evidence to be implausible, incredible or unreliable or a document to be worth no weight whatsoever, it is necessary to say so in the determination and for such findings to be supported by reasons. A bare statement that a witness was not believed or that a document was afforded no weight is unlikely to satisfy the requirement to give reasons.

13. Through the body of the decision, the UT elaborated:

[11] The depth and extent of the duty to give reasons will inevitably vary from one case to another. The duty is contextually sensitive. Thus, as the Upper Tribunal observed in Shizad [2013] UKUT 35 (IAC), a tribunal’s reasons need not be extensive if its decision makes sense. See also R (Iran) v SSHD [2005] EWCA Civ 982.

[12] It is appropriate to reflect finally on one intensely pragmatic-and frequently occurring- scenario, namely that of believing or disbelieving the evidence, in full or in part, of a party or a witness. In Allport v Wilboram [2004] EWCA Civ 1668, Neuberger LJ stated:

“It is frequently difficult to explain wholly satisfactorily why one rejects or accepts one particular piece of evidence given by one particular witness. Sometimes there is no real alternative to decide which is inherently more believable. “

In every court’s findings, issues of this kind must be squarely addressed. Where the court finds the evidence of one person more believable than that of another, it should normally be possible to state, briefly and clearly, why. The reason might, for example, be based on a demonstrated inconsistency or inconsistencies on an issue or issues of significance. Alternatively it might relate to the demeanour of a witness or party. If, for instance, it appears to the court that one person was clearly and conscientiously striving to tell the truth, while another was hesitant and evasive in response to questions, this should be stated. Likewise, where a court finds a person’s evidence unimpressive or unpersuasive on account of matters such as hesitancy, lengthy pauses, frequent requests to repeat simple questions or a reluctance to engage with the court generally. If any of these considerations or anything comparable constitutes the basis for the court’s credibility assessment and findings, care should be taken to say so in the judgement: neither the parties nor the appellate court can be left or expected to guess. The final word on this subject goes to Lord Neuberger:

“Decisions without reasons are certainly not justice: indeed they are scarcely decisions at all”

14. As became clear in submissions, Ms Gilmour’s focus was on the findings that the Judge reached, however in her submissions Ms Gilmour was unable to identify the reasons the Judge gave for coming to those findings. I accept that the Judge clearly identified the sole issue in the appeal, that of A’s sexuality. The Judge did not accept that A is a gay man, that much is clear from her findings, however having come to that conclusion, the Judge fails to give any real reasons at all for reaching that outcome.

15. The same can be said for why she rejected the otherwise consistent evidence before her of A’s relationship with B, this is all the more striking in that the Judge accepts that B himself is a gay man from Pakistan, and positively accepted his evidence. The Judge did not have to accept that A and B are in a relationship together, but having heard positive evidence to that end, she did have to give adequate reasons for rejecting it.

16. As Males LJ outlines in Simetra above, “the best way to demonstrate the exercise of the necessary care is to make use of "the building blocks of the reasoned judicial process" by identifying the issues which need to be decided, marshalling (however briefly and without needing to recite every point) the evidence which bears on those issues, and giving reasons why the principally relevant evidence is either accepted or rejected as unreliable. Fourth, and in particular, fairness requires that a judge should deal with apparently compelling evidence, where it exists, which is contrary to the conclusion which he proposes to reach and explain why he does not accept it.”

17. In my judgment the Judge’s decision fails to give any reasons for the findings she reaches in relation to the core issues in dispute, namely A’s sexuality. It was inadequate for the Judge to find that A’s evidence of his relationship with B to be ”superficial”, and how they met in a club and discovered each other’s sexuality to be “totally lacking in credibility”. This is all the more important when on a fair reading of the decision the Judge otherwise found B to be a credible witness and that both A and B gave consistent evidence.

18. In that sense the Judge fell into the error warned against in MK and the other cases. It is clear the Judge did not accept key parts of A’s account, the difficulty with her decision is it is simply unclear why.

19. There is, as MK, Azizi and Simetra outline, nothing wrong with brevity, in many respects it is to be encouraged, as such I do not agree with Mr Duffy’s submission that the decision is too concise, a decision only needs to be as long as it needs to be, however in this case the failing in the Judge’s decision, for the reasons given above, is the lack of reasons explaining her findings.

20. As such I find that the Judge materially erred in law as advanced by Mr Duffy and the decision is set aside.

21. I have given consideration as to whether the matter should be retained by the Upper Tribunal or not, in my judgment the entirety of the decision of the Judge should be set aside. The fact finding is not extensive, but nevertheless is the entirety of the factual matrix advanced by him. That is sufficient to say that the fact finding is of such necessary, and that A has not had a full, coherent set of reasons as to his claim, that in my view the Practice Direction is met and the case should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal. Given this I consider that no findings of fact can be preserved, and the matter should be heard de novo in the First-tier Tribunal.

Notice of Decision

The decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Bartlett is set aside on account of error of law

The appeal is remitted to be heard de novo in the First-tier Tribunal before any Judge other than Judge Bartlett. No findings of fact are preserved.

Judge T.S. Wilding

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

Date: 28th January 2026