Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2025-005910
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/60888/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 16 March 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE STAMP

Between

HE
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Raw, Counsel instructed by Howe & Co Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms Ahmed, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 10 March 2026

DECISION AND REASONS

Order Regard 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.

Background
1. The appellant appeals, with permission, the decision of First-tier judge Drew dated 23 October 2025 on the basis that it contains an error of law. The judge dismissed the appeal against the respondent’s refusal to grant his protection claim.
2. The appellant is a 25-year-old Turkish national of Kurdish ethnicity. He is a supporter of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (the “HDP”) and he asserted that as a result of his political activities he was arrested, detained and tortured on two separate occasions in May and July 2022. He was released from custody only after having agreed to act as an informant. Shortly thereafter, with the assistance of his family, he left Turkey and arrived in the UK on 12 September 2022 by boat and claimed asylum shortly thereafter.
3. The respondent refused the claim on 11 April 2024 on the basis that the appellant’s narrative was not considered credible given the inconsistencies both by reference to his own account and external information and therefore he did not have a well-founded fear of persecution.
4. A notice of appeal was lodged with the First-tier Tribunal on 11 April 2024 and heard on 7 October 2025.
5. The judge, whilst accepting that the appellant was a member of the HDP, found him not to have given a credible account of his arrest, detention and torture and concluded he did not fear persecution for a convention reason nor would he be at risk from persecution on return to Turkey. On that basis the judge dismissed the appellant’s claims for asylum and humanitarian protection and under Article 3 of the ECHR.
6. The appellant appealed against the judge’s decision on 3 November 2025 and this was granted, in part, by First-tier judge Seelhoff on 30 December 2025 on the following basis:
1. “The application is in time.
2. Ground 1 asserts that the judge made flawed credibility findings as a result of misdirecting himself about the law by basing adverse credibility findings on a finding that aspects of the case were implausible.
3. Paragraph 25 does not contain a finding that the claim is not credible, just that an aspect of it was not plausible. At paragraph 26 the judge makes an opposite finding. The actual credibility finding is at 28 and represents final conclusions in light of observations made earlier in the decision [19-24]. Whilst it is correct that an account should rarely be rejected on plausibility alone it is not arguable that the judge erred in this respect.
4. Ground 2 argues that the judge failed to properly apply the guidance in IK (Returnees Records- Draft evaders Turkey [2004] UKAIT 00312. This case was drawn to the judge’s attention in the grounds. The only caselaw cited in the decision is “IA and others” (sic) which is presumable a reference to IA & Others (Risk-Guidelines-Separatist) Turkey CG [2003] UKIAT 00034. It is arguable that the judge should have clearly identified and engaged with relevant caselaw that was specifically raised in the skeleton argument.
5. Ground 3 argues that there are flawed credibility findings. In my view this challenge simply expresses disagreement with the findings that were made in the round with weight having been a matter for the judge.
6. Ground 4 argues that the judge failed to consider a supporting letter from the Appellant’s father. Whilst the letter is brief and not especially detailed it is arguable this document ought to have been considered.
7. Permission to appeal is granted on grounds 2 and 4 only.”
Submissions
7. At the outset I reminded the parties that the submissions need only cover grounds 2 and 4 given the terms of the permission to appeal.
8. Mr Raw adopted his grounds of appeal on those grounds and submitted that the judge had not properly applied IK (Returnees Records - IFA) [2004] UKAIT 00312. Mr Raw acknowledged that that the country guidance case to which he refers was actually IA and others (Risk-Guidelines-Separatist) Turkey CG [2003] UKIAT 00034 and that the paragraph quoted in the grounds from IK is actually a verbatim quote taken from paragraph 47 of IA. Mr Raw submitted that the judge taken not properly taken account of the factors which were identified in that case principally that the appellant was an HDP supporter, was of Kurdish ethnicity and lacked a current up to date Turkish passport. Second, that the judge had not properly considered the probative value of the appellant’s father letter which supported the appellant’s version of events that the police were looking for him in September and November 2022, after the appellant had left the country.
9. Ms Ahmed relied on her rule 24 response. Ms Ahmed referred me to Acrom v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 537 at paragraph 45 for the proposition that a judge need not refer to every piece of evidence before him in making his decision. In addition, IA made it clear that they were not setting out a tick box approach and that all the evidence had to be looked at in the round in determining whether an appellant would suffer persecution if returned to his home country which the judge did. In relation to the second permitted ground, the father’s letter was notable for its brevity and implicitly the judge had not placed much weight on it looking at the evidence as a whole.
Discussion and Decision.
10. The issue which I have to determine whether is whether there is an error of law in the First-tier’s tribunal decision. If I conclude there is, I need to consider whether the error requires me to set aside that decision in whole or in part.
11. Turning to the first permitted ground that the judge failed to properly consider the risk to the appellant on his return to Turkey being a Kurdish HDP supporter with no passport. IA at paragraph 46 sets out factors which “inexhaustively” are considered to be material in giving rise to potential suspicion in the minds of authorities concerning a particular claimant. These included Kurdish ethnicity, the level of involvement with a separatist organisation and lack of a Turkish passport. The other factors listed are not considered relevant given either the judge’s finding that the appellant’s narrative of arrest and torture by the police was not credible or because the facts of this particular case do not trigger them.
12. In the following paragraph in IA, the judge sets out the manner in which these factors are to be addressed:
“We cannot emphasise too strongly the importance of avoiding treating these factors as some kind of checklist. Assessment of the claim must be in the round bearing in mind the matters set out above as a consequence of a careful scrutiny and assessment of the evidence. The central issue as always is the question of the real risk on return of ill treatment amounting to persecution or breach of a person’s Article 3 rights”.
13. The judge did exactly what was required of him. Indeed, at paragraph 29 he expressly stated that he had considered the country guidance of IA and “considered the factors in the round”. At paragraph 16 he noted the appellant’s Kurdish ancestry and referred in paragraph 18 to the CPIN Turkey: Kurds 2025 which states at 3.1.1 that in general any discrimination faced by the Kurds does not, by its nature or repetition, even taken cumulatively, amount to a real risk of persecution and/or serious harm.
14. In terms of HDP membership, the CPIN Turkey: HDP, October 2023 states in its executive summary that simply being a member of the HDP is not likely to result in a person facing prosecution although the risk faced will depend on the person’s profile and activities. The judge accepted that the appellant was a member of the HDP but expressly concluded at paragraph 29 that he did not accept he had come to the adverse attention of the authorities such that he would be likely to be at risk if returned to his home country as, in light of this, it would avoid any need for him to lie to the authorities about the extent of his political involvement.
15. Mr Raw made much of the appellant not having a Turkish passport and, on the basis of IA, that he could be at risk if returned given he would be treated as a failed asylum seeker. The judge expressly dealt with this issue in paragraph 22. The judge identifies the inconsistency between the screening interview when the appellant stated he never had a passport and both his previous visa application to the UK which would have necessitated a passport and his later witness statement when he said that he had lost it. The appellant gave a misunderstanding by the interpreter at the interview as the reason for the inconsistency which, the judge acknowledged, could be a credible reason but when viewed in the context of the other inconsistencies within that interview and more generally led the judge to conclude his evidence on this point and many others lacked credibility and indeed, in the following paragraph, concluded “ I do not accept his explanations and find his attempt to obfuscate the conflicting accounts he has given as undermining his credibility”. Accordingly, the judge found that he did not accept the appellant had, in fact, lost his passport and that he would not be at risk on return to his home country as a failed asylum seeker.
16. In light of my observations above, I find no error of law in the judge’s application of the country guidance case of IA on any of the matters set out in the first permitted ground of appeal.
17. Turning to the second permitted ground, the failure to properly consider the evidence of the letter from his father relating to the police interest in the appellant I find no basis to conclude that the judge made any error of law. It has been established case law for some time that a judge is not required to identify each piece of evidence that he has taken into account in his determination. The latest iteration of this principle, which is particularly relevant given its immigration context, is the Court of Appeal’s decision in Acrom where Lady Justice Andrews said at paragraph 45:
“Where a relevant point or piece of evidence is not mentioned in a decision of this nature, it does not mean that it has been disregarded. Nor should an appellate court readily assume that a judge – particularly a specialist immigration judge – has erred in law simply because every step in their reasoning has not been fully set out”.
18. Looking at the decision of the judge as a whole, the judge sets out his approach in paragraph 20 acknowledging that he does not refer every piece of evidence but only those material to his findings. Clearly, he did not consider the appellant’s father’s letter material to his decision which given the letter’s brevity and the preponderance of evidence which were available to the judge for him to conclude that the appellant’s narrative was not credible was a conclusion that the judge could legitimately make and I find no error of law.

Notice of Decision
For the reasons set out above, there are no errors of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal and I decline to set the decision aside.

Mark Stamp

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

13 March 2026