Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-005801
First-tier Tribunal Nos: PA/62885/2023
LP/11809/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 11th March 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MERRIGAN

Between

SI
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr A. Slatter, Counsel
For the Respondent: Mr Mr J. Nappey, Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 18 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 against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Taylor (“the judge”). By her decision of 20 June 2025 (“the decision”), the judge dismissed the appellant’s appeal against the respondent’s refusal of his protection and human rights claim.
Background
2. The appellant is a citizen of Bangladesh, born in 2000. He entered the United Kingdom on 9 February 2022 on a student visa. He claimed asylum on 28 April 2022. His case was summarised by the judge at [8] of the decision:
“…he was the leader of the student wing of a political group ICS, which was affiliated to the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party. He was involved in political activities and violent protests, and was attacked at demonstrations in July 2017 and June 2021. On 9th February 2021 the appellant posted on social media against the Awami League, and on the day after, his father told him that his family home had been attacked. The appellant feared that if he returned to Bangladesh, that he would be attacked or killed for his political activities.”
3. It was not disputed today that this is anything other than a fair summary to which, in any event, the judge gave further detail, as I set out below. The essential issue before me is whether the judge should have adjourned to permit the appellant to adduce further evidence.
4. The respondent’s case was summarised by the judge at [7]. It was accepted that the appellant was a member of ICS; but not that he was anything more than a low-level member. The respondent did not accept that the appellant feared the authorities in Bangladesh; nor, indeed, that the group to which the appellant was involved partook of student political violence. The respondent did not accept that he was a risk on return.
The Decision of the First-tier Tribunal
5. The judge agreed with the respondent that the appellant had not evidenced his claim. In assessing the evidence before her, the judge said at [17]:
“…The appellant has submitted reports of opposition leaders being targeted, but they all related to the period before the fall of Sheikh Hasina, and the appellant has submitted no reliable evidence in support of his claim that he remains at risk. The current CPIN [dated December 2024], is very detailed and concludes that leaders and supporters of opposition groups in Bangladesh were unlikely to be at risk.”
6. The new evidence that the appellant sought to introduce concerned an attack on his father said to have taken place only eight days before the hearing before the judge. Hereafter, I shall call this “the June evidence”. The reasons for the judge declining to accept the June evidence are at [9] of the decision.
“The appellant attended the hearing, he was not represented and stated that he was content to represent himself. An interpreter had been booked but the appellant had a good standard of English. The appellant was content to engage with the Tribunal in English but to use the interpreter if necessary. The appellant stated that he wished to submit new evidence, by way of videos and statements which had not previously been served or uploaded. The Tribunal Judge noted that the appellant had been given ample time during which to prepare his case and was not prepared to accept new evidence on the morning of the hearing, which had not previously been served, especially video evidence which had not been uploaded on the Tribunal system. The appellant stated that the evidence related to attacks on his home. The Tribunal Judge advised the appellant that evidence of these incidents could be given in oral evidence.”
7. As to this last point, the judge heard oral evidence and submissions on the June evidence, finding that the appellant was not credible on this new matter and, even if the attack had happened, that protection was still available to the appellant:
“They attacked his [the appellant’s] father on 8th June this year, they continued to attack his house and he had supporting evidence of the attack.” [14]

“The appellant’s claims of recent attacks are not consistent with the background evidence, and lack credibility. If the appellant’s father was attacked by local elements, the CPIN advises that the police can offer protection.” [17]
The grounds of appeal
8. The application for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal was made on 28 July 2025. The grounds in that application were expressed as follows.
a. Ground 1: the First-tier Tribunal erred in not allowing the appellant to submit new evidence.
b. Ground 2: the judge has unreasonably put over-emphasis on CPIN without duly considering the appellant’s evidence.
9. Permission to appeal out of time was granted by First-tier Tribunal Judge Iqbal on 22 December 2025 on both grounds.
Submissions
10. As to ground 2, Mr Slatter does not dispute that the judge was entitled to rely on the CPIN referred to at [17] and quoted above: the question is whether she has placed an over-reliance on it in the context of older CPINs and country information also being before her, and the voluminous evidence supplied by the appellant overall. Even within the December 2024 CPIN, Mr Slatter draws my attention to paragraph 9.4.3: where it is said that “Dhaka University, overseen by the interim government, banned the activities of Jamaat-e-Islami student wing Bangladeshi Chhatra Shibir, on 19 September 2024”. The significance of this, says Mr Slatter, is that while the CPIN reports that the dominance of the Awami League, whom the appellant has posted against, and the Bangladeshi Nationalist party were supplanted in July 2024 with a new interim government, Jamaat-el-Islami continues to be suppressed. The judge records at [12] that the appellant claims “a very important role in the uprising against AL [Awami League]”. Moreover, the appellant maintains that he opposed the Chattra League: the student league of the current regime. Had the judge adjourned to admit the June evidence as sought by the appellant, it would have shown that the danger the appellant contends he was in before the change of government persisted after the change.
11. This leads directly to ground 1, on which Mr Slatter has concentrated his submissions. Citing Nwaigwe (adjournment: fairness) [2014] UKUT 00418 (IAC), Mr Slatter observes that the test to be applied in considering an adjournment is fairness; and that here there is clear procedural unfairness in the judge’s decision not to adjourn so that new evidence could be considered. Eight days were not enough to collate and translate the June evidence; and the shortness of time was all the more of a difficulty for a litigant in person. Mr Slatter argues that this is not a case where it can be said that the additional evidence would have made no difference. The attack on the appellant’s father is a serious matter that, if true, has obvious implications for the level of protection that the appellant may have available to him in Bangladesh. Failing to adjourn deprived the appellant of a fair hearing and, as such, the decision cannot stand.
12. Moreover, the judge made a finding of adverse credibility at [17] that is unsafe given that the appellant had evidence which, if it had been considered, it is said would have shown the appellant’s account to be credible. It is manifestly unfair, says Mr Slatter, to refuse to admit the June evidence that would have shown the appellant’s case to be credible and then go on to conclude that the appellant is not credible.
13. Mr Nappey, for the respondent, also concentrated on ground 1, submitting that ground 2 stands or falls with ground 1. If ground 1 is not made out, then it is said that ground 2 amounts to no more than a disagreement with findings that were properly open to the judge; and certainly does not amount to a conclusion that is rationally insupportable (Volpi v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464). The December 2024 CPIN is clear in its executive summary that “Leaders, members, and supporters of the BNP Jamaat-e-Islami and their auxiliary (student and youth) organisations are unlikely to face persecution or serious harm from the state”; and the judge has accurately reflected that. The judge went on to observe at [20] that “The current CPIN on Bangladesh advises that relocation would be a viable option if the appellant felt that he was at risk from local elements”. It was the most recent CPIN before her – the only post the change of government – and she was entitled to place the reliance she did upon it.
14. Nor is it accepted that the June evidence, if admitted, would have made any difference to the outcome of the appeal. The appellant, as the judge recorded at [15], already alleged that his brother had suffered political violence in Bangladesh:
“As evidence of an assault, the appellant submitted a photograph of a mark on his back, however without a medical report, the origin of the mark is unknown and its origin relies totally on the evidence of the appellant, the photograph on its own carries little weight.”
15. The judge also recorded at [8] that the appellant contended his family home had been attacked in 2021. The June evidence, says Mr Nappey, would only serve to amplify an argument that the appellant had already had ample opportunity to evidence. The judge was right to conclude that the evidence as a totality was insufficient to demonstrate that the appellant would be at risk on return to Bangladesh. The June evidence would have made no difference.
16. Returning to ground 1, Mr Nappey agrees the applicability of the Nwaigre test: it is fairness that is at issue with respect to the judge’s decision not to adjourn. Fairness, however, cuts both ways. The appeal before the judge had been lodged in November 2023; and the application to adjourn should be taken in the context of another hearing being adjourned four months earlier, where the appellant had uploaded a large bundle only on the day of the hearing. Both parties are entitled to a timely hearing; and in the light of the foregoing delay, the judge allowing oral evidence on the new matter rather than adjourning to admit the June evidence was a proportionate response within her discretion to the need to be fair to both parties.
17. Moreover, the aforementioned adverse credibility at [17] should not be taken in isolation, but in the context of findings made at [15] to [19], all of which supported the conclusion that the appellant would not be at risk on return. That the judge did not consider the June evidence does not disentitle her to find that the appellant’s claims of recent attacks lack credibility: she was entitled to make that finding on the basis of the large amount of evidence already before her.
Analysis
18. It is ground 1 that is key. In declining to adjourn, the judge had only the appellant’s oral evidence of the alleged assault on his father and not the videos and statements that the appellant sought to rely upon. In finding that “The appellant’s claims of recent attacks are not consistent with the background evidence, and lack credibility”, the judge plainly made a finding that spoke to the events of 8 June 2025 as separate from earlier events. For all that the judge was entitled to take a view as to the rest of the appellant’s evidence, I cannot see that it was open to her to make an adverse credibility finding on evidence that she specifically declined to admit. Moreover, the adverse credibility finding at [17] appears to have infected the findings at [15] to [19] overall, as the former supports the latter findings in reaching the conclusion at [20] that the appellant would not be at risk. Ground 1 therefore identifies a material error of law.
19. To the extent that the judge should have permitted a short adjournment if she were going to go on, as she did, to consider the alleged events of 8 June 2025, ground 2 is also made out. I do not see that the judge was wrong to place more weight on the December 2024 CPIN than he did on older CPINs, but it follows from the fact that she did not consider the June evidence at all that she did not give it adequate weight. Ground 2, however, adds nothing to the material error identified in ground 1.
Notice of Decision
1. The judge’s decision involved the making of an error of law.
2. No findings are preserved.
3. The matter is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard by a different judge.

D. Merrigan

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

9 March 2026