Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-005399

First-tier Tribunal No: HU/53856/2024
LH/02085/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 23 February 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LOKE

Between

FAJ
(Anonymity Order made)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms A Smith, Counsel
For the Respondent: Mr M. Pugh, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on Monday 9 February 2026

DECISION AND REASONS
BACKGROUND
1. The Appellant appeals against the decision of First-tier Tribunal (FtT) dated September 2025 (“the Decision”) dismissing her appeal against the decision of the Secretary of State dated 6 March 2024 refusing her application for entry clearance to join her mother (‘the Sponsor’) under paragraph 297 of the Immigration Rules.
2. The Appellant filed an application for permission to appeal with the FtT which was refused on 28 October 2025. The application was renewed before the Upper Tribunal on 24 November 2025 and permission was granted on 11 December 2025.
3. The Grounds relied on by the Appellant can be summarised as follows:
Ground 1: the Judge failed to consider relevant evidence, namely the Sponsor’s sister’s witness statement when concluding that the Appellant’s father had not died as claimed.
Ground 2: the Judge provided insufficient reasons and irrationally rejected the Sponsor’s account.
Ground 3: The Judge adopted an irrational approach to the expert evidence in this case.
4. In granting permission, Upper Tribunal Judge Jackson stated:
The first ground of appeal is just arguable (as opposed to disagreement with the findings), in that the First-tier Tribunal has not made express adverse credibility findings against the Sponsor (although this is implied) or her sister who was unable to attend the hearing and no finding as to why their evidence as to the Appellant’s father’s death is not accepted; it being considered plausible by reference to events in the expert report.
The second and third grounds of appeal have less merit, but given the holistic assessment required and significance of a person having a parent in their home country (or not) as part of the broader assessment and adequacy of reasons; I do not exclude them from the grant of permission.
5. The Respondent provided a response to the Grounds under Rule 24 dated 16 December 2025.

ISSUE
6. My task is to determine whether the First-tier Tribunal made a material error of law. I am not determining the appeal against the decision of the SSHD. It is well established that judicial caution and restraint is required when considering whether to set aside a decision of a specialist fact finding tribunal. It does not matter that I may have reached a different conclusion. What matters is whether the decision under appeal is one that no reasonable judge could have reached.
7. I remind myself of the following principles that the law says must apply when considering. In summary, having considered: KM v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 693, AH (Sudan) v SSHD [2007] UKHL 49, AA (Nigeria) v SSHD [2020] EWCA Civ 1296, MA (Somalia) v SSHD [2010] UKSC 49 and Volpi & Anor v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464:
1. The First-tier Tribunal is an expert tribunal and an appellate court should not rush to find a misdirection an error of law merely because it might have reached a different conclusion on the facts or expressed themselves differently
2. The UT should not interfere with the trial judge's conclusions on primary facts unless it is satisfied that he was plainly wrong.
3. The UT should not be astute to characterise as an error of law what, in truth, is no more than a disagreement with the UT's assessment of the facts.
4. Where a relevant point is not expressly mentioned by the First-tier Tribunal, the court should be slow to infer that it has not been taken into account.
5. The UT is an appellate court and it is bound, unless there is compelling reason to the contrary, to assume that the First-tier Tribunal judge has taken the whole of the evidence into his consideration. The mere fact that the First-tier Tribunal does not mention a specific piece of evidence does not mean that he overlooked it.
6. Experienced judges in this specialised tribunal are to be taken to be aware of the relevant authorities and to be seeking to apply them without needing to refer to them specifically.
7. Reasons for judgment will always be capable of having been better expressed. An appellate court should not subject a judgment to narrow textual analysis. Nor should it be picked over or construed as though it was a piece of legislation or a contract.
8. Decisions should be respected unless it is quite clear that the First-tier Tribunal has misdirected itself in law.
9. The focus should be on the way the First-tier Tribunal performed the essence of the task required
8. If it is determined that the Decision does contain an error of law, I then need to decide whether to set aside the Decision in consequence. If I set the Decision aside, I must then either re-make the decision, relist it to be determined in the Upper Tribunal or remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal to do so.
9. I had before me a bundle running to 363 pages (pdf) ([B/xx]) containing the documents relevant to the appeal before us, and the Appellant’s and Respondent’s bundles before the First-tier Tribunal.

DISCUSSION
10. The grounds of appeal are at B/21. The Respondent’s response is at B/32.
11. With respect of Ground 1, at [18-19] of the Decision the Judge accepted that there were good reasons why the Sponsor’s sister Shukri Abdi Mohamed was not able to attend to give evidence. The Respondent had been invited to provide written questions before the hearing and had declined to do so. The Judge indicated that in the circumstances he did not reduce the weight to be attached to her evidence.
12. In her witness statement at B/95 Ms Mohamed provides first hand evidence that the Sponsor’s husband had died. This was a key issue in this case. The Judge addressed this issue at [24-37] of the Decision and makes no reference at all to Ms Mohamed’s witness statement in his findings.
13. On one hand, as was submitted to me by the Respondent, the Judge was aware of Ms Mohamed’s evidence and ought to be presumed to have taken that evidence into account. The mere fact it was not mentioned does not necessarily mean it was overlooked. The Judge provided other reasons for finding ultimately that the Sponsor’s husband had not died as claimed.
14. However, it would have been good practice in this case for the Judge to have referred to Ms Mohamed’s witness statement in his findings, and to have given reasons for rejecting it. Particularly given Ms Mohamed’s evidence directly addressed this central issue, and the Judge had already stated he would not reduce the weight of her evidence on the basis she was absent, thus her evidence fell to be considered as if she had given oral evidence in court.
15. Had this been a standalone ground, this would be a finely balanced decision. However I turn to the other reasons that the Judge provided for concluding that the Appellant’s father had not died as claimed, and this is where I turn to Ground 3.
16. In concluding that the Appellant’s father had not died as claimed, the Judge considered the expert report of Dr Chonka. At [27] the Judge accepted his expertise as an expert on Somalia. At [29] the Judge noted Dr Chonka’s report made reference to media reports which refer to civilian casualties and that on this basis Dr Chonka considered it plausible that civilians were killed in the attacks. At [35] the Judge further accepted that it was not unusual for media sources to indicate number of fatalities or names.
17. However, at [36] the Judge found:
36. Although it is possible civilians were killed, these explosions are repeatedly referred to as being targeted and I have not been referred to any evidence translated into English which confirms that any civilians were killed. In addition, there is no explanation as to what the appellant’s father was doing such a long way from home and from his pregnant wife at the time. I find Dr Chonka’s assessment that it is plausible that civilians were killed in the explosions to be speculation.
Firstly, whilst the media reports relied on by Dr Chonka were not translated, which was unfortunate, the fact is that Dr Chonka’s conclusion having read those reports was that the media reports indicated there were civilian casualties and it was plausible that there were civilian casualties. Given that the Judge expressly accepted that Dr Chonka was an expert in his field, it was unclear why the Judge would have rejected his assessment of the media reports. Secondly, the Judge’s conclusion that Dr Chonka’s assessment was speculation is simply not correct. Dr Chonka expressly stated at [9] of his report at B/239 that his assessment is based on contemporaneous Somalia-language news media. Finally and as an aside, whilst the Judge noted there was no explanation regarding what the Appellant’s father was doing in Baidoa, there is no evidence that this point was ever put to the Sponsor.
18. I have considered whether despite the Judge’s inconsistent assessment of the expert report, his conclusions that the Appellant had not proved her father was present in Baidoa on 6 December 2007 or that he died, are nonetheless safe. At [34] the Judge concluded that the evidence indicated the ENDF forces were the target in the explosions. The fact that civilians may have died therefore was evidence capable of supporting the Appellant’s case.
19. A consistent finding as to whether the expert evidence indicated civilians had been killed, together with the consideration of the direct evidence of Ms Mohamed, would have potentially made a material difference to the conclusion as to whether the Appellant’s father had died as claimed.
20. Ground 2 is a weaker argument that the other two grounds. It is complained that the Judge was unreasonably critical of the Sponsor’s lack of information regarding how her daughter had been located, that the Judge unreasonably placed weight on the Sponsor failing to attempt to bring the Appellant over shortly after arriving in the United Kingdom and that the inconsistency relied on at [43-44] of the Decision was unreasonable. These points relate to the Judge’s assessment of the Sponsor’s oral evidence and in my view they were findings that were open to the Judge to reach.
21. Similarly when considering the court document at B/182, while the Judge properly accepted that place names may have different spellings it was open to the Judge to find that this was unlikely within the same court document. It was submitted on behalf of the Appellant that the inconsistency could have been a typographical error. It may well have been, however it was equally open to the Judge to find that this undermined the authenticity of the document. The Judge’s conclusion regarding the document cannot be said to be unreasonable.
22. While I am not persuaded that Ground 2 discloses any error of law, I do find that Grounds 1 and 3 taken together do amount to an error of law. It is possible that had the expert evidence and Ms Mohamed’s evidence been accepted, this may well have affected the judge’s view of the Sponsor’s evidence and the court document when looking at the evidence in its entirety.
23. I have further considered whether a finding that the Appellant’s father had died as claimed would have made a material difference to the overall outcome of this appeal, given the Judge’s findings on the evidence of sole responsibility which is a separate requirement under the Immigration Rules. At [37] the Judge noted that his finding that it had not been proved that the Appellant’s father had died meant this was a ‘two parent’ case. The Judge reiterated this at [52] when specifically considering the evidence of sole responsibility. Thus the finding that the Appellant’s father had not died, had a consequential effect on the Judge’s consideration of sole responsibility.

CONCLUSION
24. For the reasons set out above, I am satisfied that the Decision discloses a material error of law. A re-hearing of this case will require a consideration of credibility and the potential attendance of Ms Mohamed. In these circumstances I remit the case to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard de novo and before a judge other than Judge Moon.

S Y Loke
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Loke
Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

13 February 2026