Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-005286
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/02261/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 6th March 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LAWRENCE

Between

AE (EGYPT)
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms V Easty, Counsel, instructed by BHT Sussex ILS
For the Respondent: Mr M Parvar, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 4 March 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
Introduction
1. The Appellant appeals against a decision by Judge SJ Clarke of the First-tier Tribunal (“FtT”), dated 24 September 2025, to dismiss an appeal by the Appellant against a decision by the Secretary of State for the Home Department (“SSHD”), dated 2 May 2024, to refuse protection and human rights claims that were made by the Appellant on 24 May 2022.
Anonymity
2. I maintain or make an order for anonymity because the Appellant continues to rely upon international protection grounds. The importance of facilitating the discharge of the obligations of the United Kingdom (“UK”) under the Refugee Convention and European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) outweighs the principle of open justice.
Background
3. In the 2 May 2024 decision, Review dated 17 December 2024 and supplementary decision letter dated 7 May 2025, the Respondent accepted the Appellant’s claimed identity including his claimed age (making him 20 year’s old presently and a minor at the time he claimed asylum) and that he is a national of Egypt. The Respondent noted that it was the Appellant’s claim to fear persecution by the Egyptian state or by the victims of a shipwreck as a suspected smuggler of people, due to him having been identified as being in an area at sea where such smuggling had occurred when he was in fact engaged in fishing, which was also prohibited in that area, and also due to him having avoided military service by fleeing Egypt due to the aforementioned fear. The Respondent did not accept the Appellant’s claim to be at a real risk of persecution if returned to Egypt, because the Respondent did not accept the credibility of the Appellant’s account that he was wanted by the authorities following an incident at sea, nor that he feared victims’ families or “government and Military Service.”
4. The Appellant’s appeal against the 2 May 2024 decision was heard by the FtT on 3 September 2025, by Judge SJ Clarke who found in the 24 September 2025 decision that the Appellant had fabricated the account of any shipwreck and being wanted by the police and the local community, that he would not be perceived as an evader given his age when he left and he has not returned, that he would not in any event be at risk of disproportionate or excessive punishment, and that the relevant armed forces were not routinely engaged in fighting and he would not be required to commit such acts when performing military service, and that the conditions encountered undertaking military service would not be not so harsh as to amount to persecution. The judge also made a finding that the decision did not breach Article 8 of the ECHR.
The appeal to the Upper Tribunal
5. The Appellant applied for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal (“UT”), which was granted by UT Judge Keith in a decision dated 28 November 2025 that accurately distils the Appellant’s grounds of appeal and identifies an additional arguable point that was not included in the ground but was “Robinson obvious”:
“1. Taking the grounds out of order, on ground (3), the Judge arguably erred in failing to consider that when recalling events of fleeing Egypt, the appellant was recalling events when he was 14 years old. While the appellant’s age is mentioned at para [17], it does not feature in the one aspect relating to recollection of events at para [20].
2. There is also an arguable error in taking issue with the absence of newspaper sources, which was said not to have been put to the appellant (para [21) – ground (2)).
3. The Judge also makes repeated reference to the lack of documentary evidence about a claimed shipwreck (paras [14], [16], [17] and [21]). There is a ‘Robinson obvious’ point that the Judge arguably erred in requiring corroboration (see para [4] of MAH (Egypt) v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 216).
4. While ground (1) appears to be a weaker ground, (challenging a finding of a fabricated as opposed to unreliable account) permission is granted on all grounds.”
6. The SSHD has apparently made no reply under Rule 24 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008.
The hearing
7. I heard oral submissions by Ms Easty who spoke to the grounds on which permission was granted, followed by Mr Parvar, then Ms Easty again in reply after which I stated that the appeal would be allowed with written reasons to follow. I then heard submissions on disposal, which I shall address below.
Error of law
8. The FtT acknowledged at paragraph 8 of the decision that the primary issue for it to determine was the Appellant’s credibility, and the relevance of the Appellant’s age to that issue was highlighted at paragraph 7 of the Appellant’s first skeleton argument where it is noted that the Appellant was a minor at the time of claiming asylum and was 14 years old at the time of the incident which led the appellant to flee Egypt, and that the correct approach to the assessment of the Appellant’s evidence should have been to give him the benefit of any doubt. At paragraph of the decision, the FtT acknowledged that the Appellant was “a minor” when he entered the UK, but nowhere in the decision is the Appellant’s age considered as a factor of potential relevance to the assessment of his credibility and it is apparent from paragraphs 19 and 20 of the decision that the FtT had regard when making that assessment to the Appellant’s apparent inability to explain certain matters, including the reasons why the Appellant’s father decided that the Appellant should flee from Egypt, which are matters that I consider a child would at last arguably be less likely to understand or be aware of. While it is appropriate to be slow to assume that the FtT would not, as an expert tribunal, have regard to elementary matters of law and practice in its area of jurisdiction, I am not persuaded that that extends to assuming that this FtT had regard to the factor in question, which it could reasonably be expected to have referred to.
9. Mr Parvar was correct to note that the FtT’s decision was based on several other strands of reasoning, including the absence of corroborative evidence that the shipwreck referred to by the Appellant did in fact occur, and that the Respondent’s review specifically raised the absence of any “objective record” of the shipwreck or any resultant local outcry, and I was persuaded that such objective record would obviously encompass the newspaper articles, the absence of which was expressly part of the FtT’s reasons. Mr Parvar was also correct in noting that MAH (Egypt) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWCA Civ 216 is authority that the absence of corroborative evidence can, depending on the circumstances, be of some evidential value: if, for example, it could reasonably have been obtained and there is no good reason for not obtaining it, and that may be a matter to which the tribunal can give appropriate weight.
10. I was however not persuaded that the error relating to the consideration was of such potential significance as to undermines the judge’s assessment of credibility in its entirety and therefore the decision must be set aside.
Disposal
11. The error of law in the FtT’s decision is such that none of the findings made by the judge regarding the Appellant’s credibility can be preserved.
12. Ms Easty submitted that it would be appropriate to remit the appeal to the FtT for a fresh decision, given the extensive nature of the required fact finding exercise. Mr Parvar did not oppose that save that he submitted that findings relating to the claimed risks relating to military service ought to be preserved, which I did not find persuasive given the possibility, identified by Ms Easty, that changes in the country situation and Appellant’s age had the potential to reopen that question albeit that there had been no challenge to the FtT’s treatment of it and that it did not appear that that aspect of the FtT’s decision was affected by the identified error of law.
13. I therefore consider, having regard to the overriding objective, that it is appropriate that the appeal to the FtT be remitted to the FtT for hearing afresh with no findings preserved.
Notice of Decision
The decision of the FtT involved the making of a material error on a point of law.
The decision of the FtT is set aside with no findings preserved.
The remaking of the decision in the appeal is remitted to the FtT, to be remade afresh by any judge other than Judge SJ Clarke.

T Lawrence
Judge Lawrence
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
5 March 2026