Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-005346

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/02961/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 15th February 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LANDES

Between

BA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Brooks, Counsel instructed by A B Legal Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mrs Abdul-Karim, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Birmingham Civil Justice Centre on 13 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. The appellant appeals, with permission granted by the First-Tier Tribunal, the decision of a judge of the First-Tier Tribunal (“the FTJ”) promulgated on 13 October 2025, dismissing his appeal from the respondent’s refusal of 3 August 2022 of his protection and human rights claims.
Anonymity
2. I continue the anonymity order made by the First-Tier Tribunal. The public interest in open justice is outweighed by the need to preserve the confidentiality of the asylum system, and the potential risk to the appellant if his identity were discovered.
Background
3. Notice of hearing for the First-Tier Tribunal hearing was sent by email on 13 June 2025 to the representatives. Tribunal records show that the notice of hearing was not sent separately to the appellant. The copy of the notice for the appellant was sent to his solicitors. Neither the appellant nor his representatives appeared at the hearing before the FTJ on 10 October and no appellant’s bundle or skeleton argument was on file.
4. The FTJ recorded in the decision [4] that the clerk made attempts to contact the appellant’s solicitors but there was no response. The clerk then emailed the solicitors saying that no-one had attended and asking why and noting “we have briefly spoken to the appellant who states that he was not aware of his hearing today”.
5. [5] of the FTJ’s decision reads “After waiting in the morning for the Appellant to arrive, and having checked that the notifications had been sent out to him, I decided it was time to hear the Appeal.” The FTJ then proceeded with the appeal in the appellant’s absence.
6. The solicitors have explained in the grounds that the notice of hearing was sent to the fee-earner’s email rather than to the firm’s general email address for service. The fee-earner was no longer working at the firm and so the hearing was not noted into the firm’s key dates or hearing diary. In a letter of 29 January 2026 following directions of the judge who granted permission, they explain that the fee earner left the solicitors following a conduct meeting on the same day the notice of hearing was sent. The notice of hearing was sent in the afternoon of that day, after the fee earner had left, and following her departure their IT support company was instructed to forward the fee earner’s emails, but unfortunately the email was missed because the forwarding request had not yet been actioned before the notice of hearing was sent. The fee-earner had not entered any key dates in respect of the appeal into the firm’s calendar before she left.
Grounds
7. The first ground avers in short that the FTJ committed or permitted a procedural irregularity capable of making a material difference to the outcome or the fairness of the proceedings. It is said that the appellant was not correctly notified of the hearing, resulting in an unfair hearing, as neither he nor his representatives were in attendance. The second and third grounds aver that the judge’s findings were irrational or inadequately reasoned averring that the appellant’s responses in PIQ and asylum interview were not in fact inconsistent with his case and that he had given a valid explanation as to how he managed to avoid his persecutor when moving which the FTJ did not take into account.
Discussion; conclusions
8. I appreciate the points made in the rule 24 response that the appellant was properly notified of the hearing and that the solicitors were contacted so that the FTJ was entitled to proceed in the appellant’s absence.
9. The matter of significance in ground 1 however is the averment that the hearing was unfair. I note the test in Nwaigwe (adjournment: fairness) [2014] UKUT 00418 that the test to be applied when considering a challenge to a refusal to adjourn is whether there was any deprivation of the affected party’s right to a fair hearing. I consider this is akin.
10. The First-Tier Tribunal are able, when considering an application for permission to appeal, instead to set the decision aside under rule 32 of the First-Tier Tribunal Procedure Rules 2014. That rule provides:
“32 (1) – “The Tribunal may set aside a decision which disposes of proceedings, or part of such a decision, and remake the decision, or the relevant part of it, if-
(a) the Tribunal considers that is in the interests of justice to do so; and
(b) one or more of the conditions in paragraph (2) are satisfied.
(2) The conditions are…
(a) a document relating to the proceedings was not provided to, or was not received at an appropriate time by a party or a party’s representative;
(b) a document relating to the proceedings was not provided to the Tribunal at an appropriate time;
(c) a party, or a party’s representative, was not present at a hearing related to the proceedings;
(d) there has been some other procedural irregularity in the proceedings.”
11. The salient points to take from that rule are that the Tribunal is given the power of set aside not simply when service does not take place properly but also in default of appearance and that all the conditions in the second paragraph of rule 32 are described as procedural irregularities. Of course, a set aside must be in the interests of justice.
12. I appreciate I am not operating under rule 32 of the First-Tier procedure rules, but that rule shows that there can be a procedural irregularity even if the tribunal or the FTJ are not at fault.
13. Of course, the tribunal administration and the FTJ himself did not appreciate on the day of the hearing that the solicitors were not aware of the hearing because a fee-earner had left under a cloud on the day the notice was sent, or that the appellant was truthfully saying he had not been aware of the hearing. I appreciate it looks from [5] of the decision as if the appellant may have been told on the morning of the hearing to attend the hearing in any event (it is not clear what the judge is referring to by “notifications” as it seems from the tribunal database and the copy of the notice of hearing that the solicitors were sent two notices of hearing by email, one for them and one for and in the name of the appellant). I was told by Mr Brooks that the appellant lived in Nottingham at the time and it is not clear from the decision how long the FTJ waited before he began the hearing. Nevertheless, even if the appellant had been told on the morning of the hearing to attend, had understood what he was told or an interpreter had been used, and was able to reach the hearing venue in time, if he had attended it would have been without a representative.
14. Mrs Abdul-Karim referred to the length of time the proceedings had taken to get to a final hearing, and it seemed from the history that at least some of the reasons why the proceedings had taken so long were the default of the appellant or previous representatives.
15. Nevertheless, I conclude standing back that there was a deprivation of the appellant’s right to a fair hearing. Whatever may have happened in the past, the appellant was not at fault on this occasion. He was only made aware on the morning of the hearing that there was a hearing. He had instructed representatives who remained on the record, but they were not in attendance, through no fault of the appellant. Although this was not the tribunal or the FTJ’s fault, there was a procedural irregularity which affected the fairness of proceedings. The appellant was deprived of a proper opportunity for his case to be heard. I consider the decision must be set aside and the appeal reheard in the First-Tier Tribunal.
16. Given the decision must be set aside in any event, there is no need for me to consider grounds 2 and 3 as no findings can be preserved as findings were made without the benefit of hearing evidence from the appellant or submissions made on his behalf.
17. I note that no appellant’s bundle or skeleton argument had been prepared by the time of the First-Tier Tribunal hearing. I appreciate the representatives were not acting from the beginning of proceedings and no doubt they would have taken action had they realised a hearing was coming up, but as I observed to Mr Brooks they should not wait until they have notice of the remitted hearing to prepare a bundle and skeleton argument.

Notice of Decision
The decision is set aside for material error of law.
The appeal is remitted to the First-Tier Tribunal in Birmingham for re-hearing by another judge.
No findings are preserved.
Direction
The tribunal will provide a Kurdish Sorani interpreter for the remitted hearing, unless advised otherwise by the appellant’s representatives.

A-R Landes

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

13 February 2026