Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-000065
First-tier Tribunal No:
PA/66032/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

7th July 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RUDDICK

Between

XX (GEORGIA)
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr R. Solomon, instructed by Elthorne Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr D. Simpson, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 29 May 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 her. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The First-tier Tribunal (“FtT”) made an anonymity order in this appeal because the appellant has made a claim for international protection, and I have not been asked to set that order aside. While remaking the decision, I have carefully considered the appellant’s evidence of her political profile in Georgia. I have concluded that there is a real risk that the appellant could be identified if the specific details of some of her political activities were published. I have therefore been deliberately vague in my recital of some of the facts below. The details of the activities in question are known to the parties and are not in dispute.
2. The appellant is a citizen of Georgia. In December 2021, she arrived in the UK and claimed asylum on the grounds that she was at real risk of persecution in Georgia because of her opposition to the ruling Georgian Dream party. The respondent refused her asylum claim and in a decision dated 6 November 2025, the First-tier Tribunal (“FtT”) dismissed her appeal. The appellant applied for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal and after permission was granted, the respondent accepted that the decision of the FtT contained a material error of law requiring it to be set aside. The Upper Tribunal directed that the error of law decision be made on the papers, without an oral hearing. I made that decision on 13 March 2026, and it is included as an annex below.
3. This decision is the remaking of the FtT’s decision under section 12 (2) (b) (ii) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007.
4. As set out in my error of law decision, the FtT accepted the truth of the appellant’s account of her “past activities and experiences in Georgia” but found that she would not be at risk of persecution on return. The question I am now required to decide is whether the appellant now has a well-founded fear of persecution, taking into account the accepted facts, her evidence of events since her departure from Georgia in 2021, and the up-to-date country evidence before me.
5. For the reasons set out in more detail below, I find that she does and is therefore a refugee as defined at Article 1A(2) of the Refugee Convention.
The hearing before me
6. At the hearing before me, the documents before the tribunal were:
(i) the appellant’s consolidated bundle of 439 pages, filed on 13 May 2026;
(ii) the appellant’s skeleton argument dated 26 May 2026;
(iii) my error of law decision of 13 March 2026;
(iv) the respondent’s bundle from the FtT proceedings, of 285 pages; and
(v) the respondent’s review from the FtT proceedings, dated 21.3.2025.
7. The appellant’s bundle included the respondent’s Country Policy and Information Note, Georgia: Political parties and affiliation, Version 3.0 (September 2024) (“the CPIN”), on which both parties relied. It also included two expert reports by Maksim Kharitonov. The first is dated 4 December 2024 and addresses the questions of whether the appellant would be at risk of persecution on return to Georgia and, if so, whether state protection and internal relocation would be available. The second, dated 4 May 2026, addresses the narrower question of whether the fact that the appellant was able to leave Georgia on her own passport undermines her claim to be at risk on return.
8. At the outset of the hearing, both parties agreed that the FtT had accepted the appellant’s account of events in Georgia, including of her political activities, the various threats that had been made against her and a physical attack against her in December 2021. That acceptance of her account was preserved. The issues before me were what the appellant’s profile would be on return to Georgia now, and whether that profile would mean that she was at real risk of persecution.
9. It was agreed that the appellant should be treated as a vulnerable witness in light of GP records showing that she has been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and is on medication for panic attacks.
10. I heard evidence from the appellant, with the assistance of a Georgian interpreter. I was satisfied that the appellant and the interpreter understood each other. The appellant adopted her witness statement that had been before the FtT and then was cross-examined by Mr Simpson.
11. Mr Simpson put it to the appellant that she had not raised any “specific threats from police and government officials in her statement”. She denied this. He then put it to her that the only time she had mentioned direct threats from the police was at questions 28-30 of her asylum interview. The interpreter then read these questions and answers out to her. I reproduce that section of the interview record, with some details redacted in order to protect the appellant’s identity:

“28. Question
can you tell me specifically who threatened you and what happened during this time

“28. Response
there was also threats from the police they personally threatened me in my yard I went live on facebook and the police in Georgia they support georgian dreams [sic] all of the supporters of the National Movement were fired and the same reason for why I got fired from [redacted] and told I would never been able to find another job

“29. Question
what did the police say to you

“29. Response
I was told to stop when I was recording videos [redacted] and they were being covered on TV they told me to stop doing this

“30. Question
why would the police and the Georgian Dream want you to stop your political activity

“30. Response
well because the Georgian dream instructed the police to do it and they have representatives they are criminals like mafia they are under their influence from criminal people control little criminals, if they support another political part [sic] they dont [sic] have a job at all, they didn't win the elections they falsified the results, and when I recorded videos [redacted] I sent this video.”
12. Mr Simpson pressed the appellant to accept that she had only mentioned one interaction with the police, which was when they told her to stop taking videos. She responded that she had also provided a video of a police car parked in her yard. She said further that she had mentioned that she had started receiving threats after her political protest. These included threats over the telephone telling her that she would be arrested. She had reported these threats to the police, and they had “taken no measures”. They had not arrested her, but they had told her that if she did not stop, she would be arrested. They had done so because the police are politically affiliated with the Georgian Dream party.
13. Mr Simpson put it to the appellant that she had claimed in her witness statement that she was “known across the country as a person opposed to the government”. The appellant disputed that she had said that, but when he referred her to her witness statement, she accepted that she had said that during her political protest she had become widely known.
14. Mr Simpson then asked her about whether she had engaged in any political activity around the 2024 Georgian elections. She said she had been less active at that time because what had happened in 2021 had had an impact on her mental health. He put it to her that her profile in Georgia will have decreased and she replied, “My political role still remains active and it will remain active as long as this government remains in power”.
15. Mr Simpson put it to the appellant that she had provided “no recent evidence of threats and harassment since being in the UK”. She responded that her mother would be providing evidence of that. When pressed to say when the most recent police visit to her home in Georgia had been, she answered that she was not able to give precise dates and did not want to “provide wrong information”. Her mother would be giving evidence and would be in a better position to given a detailed answer.
16. There was no re-examination by Mr Solomon. I then asked the appellant to clarify what she meant when she said she had been politically active in 2024. She said that she had attended a protest in front of the Georgian Embassy. She had not been able to be more active due to anxiety and fear.
17. I then heard evidence from the appellant’s mother, in English. She adopted her witness statement of 8 April 2025, in which she had had said that on two visits back to Georgia the police had “knocked at the door” of her home, looking for her daughter. She said this had been in 2023 and 2024. Since then, her mother had said that she was “having phone calls and doorbells ringing” and so she had moved her mother to her brother’s flat and installed CCTV. When the police visited her in 2023, they had asked her where her daughter was and she had replied that she was not there and would not be there “for a while”. When she was asked the same question in 2024, she had lied and said that her daughter had visited Georgia on holiday the month before. She had wanted to see the policeman’s reaction. He had replied, “No she didn’t”; their records did not show that she had entered the country. She then ended the conversation. She had installed CCTV in 2025 and in February or March of this year, she had captured a video of a man knocking on the door “holding a document”. She had not mentioned this in her statement because she had not seen him personally.
18. Mr Simpson put it to the witness that in her statement she had not referred “to any specific threats made by the police or a desire for them to arrest your daughter”. She responded that on the first occasion, she had asked them why they were looking for her daughter and they had replied, “You are her mother. You should know what she has done.” He put it to her that she was unaware of the police’s intentions towards her daughter or whether they “would cause harm or seek to arrest her”. She replied that she thought they would because they spoke to her aggressively and the second time they had said her daughter was hiding because she does not want to “get into trouble”. She had asked, “What trouble are you talking about?” and they had again said she should know because she was her mother. She ended her evidence by adding that on the second occasion, she had asked the police how they had known she was there and they had said that her light had been on.
19. There was no re-examination.
20. I heard submissions from Mr Simpson. With regard to events prior to the appellant’s departure from Georgia, he submitted that although she had been threatened, most of the threats came from non-state actors and that threats of arrest were not carried through. She had only been attacked once, by non-state actors, and the harm she suffered was not serious enough to amount to persecution. Moreover, this had occurred after the appellant’s political protest, which was when her political profile was at its highest. The recent police visits to the family home were “not accepted facts”; he noted that the appellant had been unable to give a specific date for them. Moreover, the police had not said what their intention was. It might have been merely to dissuade the appellant from political activity rather than to harm or arrest her.
21. Mr Simpson then took me to specific sections of the CPIN: 8.1.1, 8.1.2 (which contain excerpts from the country’s constitution), 9.1.1 (describing the OSCE’s conclusion that overall “fundamental freedoms were respected” during the 2021 elections, although there were “pervasive allegations of pressure on voters”) and 10.1.3 (which described the challenges facing the UNM party).
22. In terms of the expert reports, Mr Simpson adopted the expert’s division of opponents of the regime into four tiers in his second report and accepted that he appellant fell into tier (c), “[m]id-level opposition activists, party members, candidates for local office and prominent supporters who have appeared in media or who have been visible at protests”. He accepted on the basis of the second report that the appellant’s lawful exit from Georgia was not inconsistent with a risk of persecution on return. He then raised a series of criticisms of the first report: the expert had not differentiated between the four tiers of regime opponents as he had in his second report, and instead relied on evidence of the treatment of people who could be considered to be in all tiers from (a) (“Senior leadership figures of the principal opposition parties”) through (c). Nor did he say he had been to Georgia or conducted his own “specific academic research” on the country and the report was not backed up with references to “research done” or the basis of the expert’s knowledge. It “stretched” some of the accepted facts, in that it said that the appellant had received adverse attention from the police and described her as well-known across Georgia.
23. Mr Simpson then set out his own analysis of what the country evidence indicated about the risk to opponents of the regime in Georgia. This was that the state sought to “obstruct political assembly and limit what opposition forces can do”, but through harassment, rather than persecution. Para. 339K did not apply in this case, because the harm the appellant had suffered did not rise to the level of persecution.
24. In terms of violent attacks on specific individuals, there was “no cogent evidence” it was committed by the state. Even if the attacks were condoned by the state, they were not sufficiently serious to constitute persecution and they were usually not repeated. The evidence indicated that a person might be the subject of such an attack when they were particularly newsworthy –as the appellant had been at the time of her political protest – but that such attacks would not be repeated. There was no evidence of a “pattern of attacks” on tier (c) individuals.
25. Moreover, the appellant’s profile had since declined and she had not received online threats recently. If she were to return to Georgia, she would no longer be a “recognisable face”. If is she resumed her political activity, the chance that she would become a “social media sensation” again was low.
26. I asked Mr Simpson if he had any submissions to make about why I should not accept the appellant’s mother’s evidence. He said that it was undermined by the appellant’s inability to give the precise dates of the police visits and because the mother had failed to provide CCTV evidence, which was reasonably available.
27. Mr Solomon submitted that the appellant was a committed political activist. She might be a medium-level activist, but she had a significant profile. She had attracted the adverse attention of the state in the past and it was reasonably likely that she would do so in the future, because it was reasonably likely that she would continue her outspoken political activism. This was an “HJ (Iran) point” (referring to HJ (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rev 1) [2010] UKSC 31).
28. I raised with Mr Solomon whether it was fair for Mr Simpson to submit that the December 2021 attack was not sufficiently serious to rise to the level of persecution, given that this issue had not been raised previously and the appellant had already concluded her evidence, during which she could have been asked to provide further details. Mr Solomon stated that he was happy for me to deal with the issue on the basis of the account the appellant had given at her substantive interview. This was enough to establish that the attack was sufficiently serious to rise to the level of persecution, especially in light of the appellant’s mental vulnerability. He took me to the account, which I will discuss below. Moreover, the attack needed to be seen in the context of all of the other previous threats from by telephone, on social media and from the police.
29. As to the expert evidence, the respondent had raised no prior criticism of the reports and was precluded by TUI UK Ltd v Griffiths [2023] UKSC 48 from doing so now. The two reports needed to be read together. The expert had not specified the risk to “tier (c)” opponents of the regime in the first report because he had not used those categories. He had, however, expressed the opinion that the appellant would be at real risk of persecution.
30. He dismissed Mr Simpson’s submissions that the authorities’ interest in the appellant must have dissipated as mere speculation and inconsistent with the expert’s opinion that she would be at risk now. Neither the expert reports nor the CPIN suggested that only the senior leadership of opposition parties were at risk of serious harm. Nor was the risk only of harassment. Both the CPIN and the expert report reported multiple physical assaults on opponents of the regime. He took me to section 11.3.1 and 11.3.3 of the CPIN and the sections of the expert reports highlighted in his skeleton argument.
31. At the end of the hearing, I reserved my decision, which I now give with my reasons.
Legal framework
32. The burden of proof is on the appellant. Because the appellant claimed asylum prior to 28 June 2022, there is only a single question I need to determine: would the appellant be at real risk of persecution on return to Georgia for reasons of her political opinion. In determining that question, I must take into account all relevant evidence, including evidence to which I am willing to attach some credence, even if I cannot say that it is probably true. I must give all of the evidence the weight it is due, and then decide the single question of risk on return to the standard of a “reasonable likelihood”. See: MAH (Egypt) v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 216; Karanakaran v SSHD [2000] EWCA Civ 11.
33. Given the respondent’s late submission that the attack of December 2021 did not rise to the level of persecution, I have directed myself to the recent guidance issued by the Court of Appeal in MN (Vietnam) v SSHD [2026] EWCA Civ 485. This is that for ill- treatment to constitute persecution there must either be an act that is sufficiently serious by its nature or repetition as to constitute a severe violation of a basic human right, or an accumulation of various measures that are sufficiently serious so as to effect an individual in a similar manner. This is a question of fact, and it must be determined by taking into account all of the circumstances, including the subjective impact of the act or acts on the individual. Relevant considerations may include:
(i) the duration of the treatment;
(ii) its physical and mental effects, including whether it humiliates or debases the individual or arouses feelings of fear, anguish or inferiority capable of breaking their moral or physical resistance;
(iii) the sex, age and state of health of the victim;
(iv) the purpose for which the ill-treatment was inflicted, together with the intention or motivation behind it; and
(v) the context in which the ill-treatment was inflicted, such as in an atmosphere of heightened tension and emotions.
Findings
34. It is necessary for me to consider the appellant’s account in the context of the country evidence. I therefore begin by giving my reasons for putting weight on the two expert reports. In the first place, as Mr Solomon rightly pointed out, if the respondent had criticisms of the expert reports, she should have raised them earlier. The first report was uploaded to MyHMCTS on 17 October 2025 and has been before the respondent since that date. The second was served on 13 May 2025, 16 days before the hearing before the Upper Tribunal. The respondent did not raise any criticisms of the reports until Mr Simpson’s closing submissions at the hearing before me. The lateness of these criticisms places the respondent in “difficulties” in light of TUI: Safi v SSHD [2026] EWCA Civ 149 at [52].
35. Nor do I find the criticisms cogent. The expert has set out his credentials in detail, and I do not accept that a person cannot provide an expert opinion without having visited a country in person or conducted academic research on it. He has professional expertise about the region, and he has identified multiple specific sources for the opinions he expresses about Georgia. I disagree that he “stretched” the facts by describing the appellant as well-known in Georgia. By her accepted account (corroborated by screenshots and transcripts) she was interviewed by media outlets several times in late 2021 and received a personal letter from the former president, which was then publicised. Nor did he stretch the facts by saying that the appellant had received adverse attention from the police. She described two direct threats from the police, one delivered when they had parked in a van in the yard outside her home.
36. Moreover, the reports are detailed, cogent and based on independent evidence from a range of apparently reliable sources (many of which the respondent also relies on in her CPIN). The expert’s independence is reflected in the fact that he has designated the appellant a “tier (c)” opponent of the regime, and no higher.
37. I therefore put weight on the evidence and opinions contained in the expert reports.
38. I summarise the salient features of the account the appellant gave during her asylum claim and at her FtT appeal. In the refusal decision, the respondent had disputed none of that account except for the physical attack in December 2021. As noted above, the FtT accepted the account in its entirety and the respondent no longer disputes it.
39. It is therefore accepted that the appellant has opposed the Georgian Dream party and been a member of the United National Movement (UNM) since 2013. At her asylum interview, the appellant gave detailed reasons for supporting the UNM.
40. The appellant attended multiple peaceful marches and demonstrations. She also made videos purporting to contain evidence of illegal practices by Georgian Dream supporters in October 2021; she has provided a transcript of those videos that show her persistance. She sent these videos to news outlets, which broadcast them.
41. She also initiated a political protest in November 2021 which attracted widespread media attention and a personal expression of gratitude from the former president of Georgia. She was interviewed by several different Georgian news outlets at this time and the interviews were broadcast.
42. I conclude from this accepted evidence that the appellant was a longstanding and committed political activist in Georgia and that her political activities were motivated by genuine belief.
43. In her accepted account, the appellant said that she had had a number of interactions with the police for reasons of her political activities. At one protest, the authorities used violence and tear gas against the protesters, a result of which the appellant was briefly hospitalised. She was threatened by the police personally at least twice. Once was when she was making the videos referred to above; she was warned to stop or she would be arrested. The second was when the police parked a van in the yard of her home and threatened her there.
44. The appellant says she lost her job because of her political activities; she does not specify the date and she was not asked for this detail.
45. The appellant received multiple threats by telephone and on social media in the autumn of 2021. Her bundle contains screenshots of messages sent on facebook, together with translations of those messages. Most of the critical messages insult her intelligence, appearance and integrity, but a few wish for her death. She also received threatening comments under videos of her political activities that had been posted online. She received anonymous phone calls in which she was threatened with arrest and physical attack but, she clarified, not with death.
46. In December 2021, she was attacked by anywhere from four to seven men; she did not know how many because they attacked her from behind. They had followed her home and “ambushed” her inside the lobby of her building. The shoved and kicked her. She hit her head and “lost her vision”. One of her teeth was broken. After the attack, she required hospital treatment.
47. During the attack, the attackers threatened to kill her and her child by cutting their throats “like pigs” and to throw their bodies where no one could ever find them. This had “broken” her mental health. She later recognised the voice of one of the attackers, when she heard it in a video of her political activities in which he had confronted her. In that video, he had said that he was from Georgian Dream.
48. Viewing this account in the context of the independent country evidence, I find that the attack on the appellant in December 2021 was carried out by supporters of Georgian Dream and with the tacit support of the ruling regime. This is because it is entirely consistent with the evidence in the CPIN and the expert reports, all of which describe physical assault against opposition activists by supporters of the Georgia Dream party. According to sources cited in the respondent’s CPIN, such assaults are believed to have been incited or even orchestrated by the authorities, although “officially they were carried out by ‘outraged citizens’”. The expert describes such assaults as carried out by “persons whose political proximity to the ruling party is plain but whose actions are routinely uninvestigated and unprosecuted”.
49. I consider that the treatment the appellant received before she left Georgia did rise to the level of persecution. This is because of a combination of factors. It had significant physical consequences: loss of vision due to a blow to the head, a broken tooth and other unspecified injuries that required hospital treatment. It was also carried out in circumstances that are reasonably likely to have caused great fear: the appellant was attacked from behind in her own home by a large group of men. As shown in the many pictures of her before me, she is a small woman. The attackers made graphic threats to kill not only the appellant but also her daughter, and these threats had a significant psychological impact on the appellant. She continues to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks as a result. The intention of the attack was, moreover, to deter the appellant from exercising her fundamental human right to political expression. Finally, the impact of the attack on the appellant must be seen in the context of the escalating series of threats against her that preceded it, including threats by the police, and the country context in which such attacks are widely believed (and believed by the appellant) to be instigated by the authorities. This is very likely to have made the attack even more frightening, as the appellant will have reasonably believed that the attackers were acting with impunity.
50. Having found that the appellant has been subjected to treatment rising to the level of persecution, I take this as a serious indication that she would be at real risk of persecution on return to Georgia in the future in accordance with Para. 339K. I find that there is no good reason to believe that such an attack would not be repeated. The expert’s opinion in his first report is that returning to Georgia “would likely expose her to continued harassment, threats, and potential physical harm”. In his second report, he describes tier (c) opponents of the regime as “exposed to informal pressure (harassment, intimidation, threats, and attacks by unidentified assailants)” (emphasis added).
51. I disagree with Mr Simpson’s reading of the CPIN as establishing that opponents of the regime are normally only attacked once, at moments when they are especially prominent. The CPIN contains a number of references to particular attacks on particular dates but nowhere does it suggest that these were the only attacks that occurred. At 11.3.1-11.3.3, the CPIN contains the following reports:
“’An intensifying series of physical attacks has raised concerns that Georgia's ruling force may be resorting to violence to silence its critics. Numerous incidents were reported over the past few days where those critical of the government were attacked or threatened by individuals or violent groups. […]’
“’a prominent government critic and co-founder of the opposition-aligned TV station, Formula, was reportedly assaulted yesterday [27 June 2023] at a Carrefour supermarket in Tbilisi. […] [He] stated that at least one unidentified man snuck up on him from behind and punched him in the face, and that the attacker mentioned his ‘swearing at the Patriarch’.
“‘In recent years, “disrespecting” the Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Ilia II, has become a commonly cited excuse for those attacking and harassing critics of the Church and of the Georgian-Dream-led government’. […]
“‘The last ten days saw at least six attacks on the ruling party critics. While officially they were carried out by “outraged citizens,” the ruling party condones and encourages them. … The Georgian Dream has resorted to such tactics in the past. After GDs [sic] came to power, prominent figures of the departing administration were attacked in the streets.’”
52. I consider that this evidence establishes that the specific attacks on named individuals that are detailed in the CPIN were not the only instances in which opponents of the government were attacked. Nor is there any evidence that if a person has been attacked once it is not reasonably likely that they will be attacked again.
53. Nor do I accept that the regime seeks to repress political opposition primarily through harassment, but does not resort to serious ill-treatment. This is the case for tier (d) opponents, to use the expert’s categories, but the appellant is accepted to be a tier (c) opponent.
54. I find that there is no good reason to believe that the appellant’s political profile has declined to such an extent that she would no longer be of adverse interest to the Georgian Dream regime. On the contrary, I accept that it is reasonably likely that the police in Georgia maintain an interest in her. I found both the appellant and her mother to be credible witnesses. Their evidence was internally consistent and consistent with their previous statements. It was given with confidence and without hesitation. Neither embellished their accounts; for example, the appellant maintained her previous account of having been threatened by the police directly only twice, while her mother, even while providing further details, did not say that the police had made any specific threats against the appellant. I place no weight on the appellant’s reluctance to give the specific date of the police visits to her mother’s home. I take judicial notice of the fact that the ability to recall specific dates is not a particularly useful indication of the genuineness of memory. In addition, the appellant said she did not want to give a date in case she got it wrong, which is consistent with her diagnosed anxiety disorder. As to the mother’s failure to adduce CCTV footage, we cannot know whether it would have been reasonably available, as Mr Simpson did not ask her about this.
55. I do not accept that the police’s failure to say specifically that they intended to harm or arrest the appellant is an indication that the appellant would not come to harm on return. As noted above, the authorities often act against their opponents through individuals they can describe as “outraged citizens” rather than through formal arrest and prosecution.
56. I further find that the appellant would continue her political activism if returned to Georgia, as she has done in the UK through attending a protest outside the Georgian Embassy. She says she would do so, and I have accepted her general credibility. It would also be consistent with her history of almost a decade of political activism prior to her departure.
57. Finally, I reject Mr Simpson’s suggestion that the appellant would not have a sufficiently high profile to be of concern to the regime if she returned to Georgia. She was nationally prominent less than five years ago. He described that prominence as “a social media sensation” and therefore, implicitly, spontaneous, irrational and unlikely to recur. This is not accurate. The appellant came to prominence not because of a social media craze of some sort but because the political protest she initiated attracted attention from political leaders and the former president and was reported in the media, as well as on facebook and YouTube. In other words, her prominence was the result of her own initiative and courage and was circulated on social media in part as a result of the attention it had attracted from the mainstream media and important political actors. There is no good reason to believe that if she engaged in similar activities in the future it would be unlikely to attract attention.
58. For these reasons, I conclude that the harm the appellant previously suffered in Georgia was sufficient to reach the threshold of persecution and that there is no good reason to consider that it will not be repeated on return. On the contrary, given the appellant’s genuine beliefs, personal commitment and established political profile, taken together with the independent country evidence, it is reasonably likely that the appellant would be persecuted on return.
59. The respondent does not suggest that internal relocation or state protection would be available against the ruling regime and its supporters.
60. I therefore conclude that the appellant’s fear of persecution in Georgia for reasons of her political opinion is well-founded and that she has been a refugee since she left her Georgia in 2021. There is nothing to suggest that she is excludable from the protection of the Refugee Convention. She is therefore entitled to refugee status in the UK.
Notice of Decision
The appeal is allowed on Refugee Convention grounds.
The appeal is allowed on human rights grounds, with reference to article 3 ECHR.
The appeal is dismissed on humanitarian protection grounds because the appellant is a refugee.

E. Ruddick

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
30 June 2026

ANNEX
Error of law decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-000065
First-tier Tribunal No:
PA/66032/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

…………………………………

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RUDDICK

Between

XX (GEORGIA)
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Appeal Determined without a hearing pursuant to Rule 34
of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant appeals with permission against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (“FtT”) dated 6 November 2025 to dismiss her human rights and protection appeal. The respondent does not oppose the appellant’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal, but the parties do not agree about how the appeal should proceed. The respondent asks for the appeal to be remitted to the FtT for a fresh hearing on all issues, while the appellant asks that it be retained in the Upper Tribunal and submits that the FtT accepted the appellant’s account, and that this finding should be preserved.
2. In directions issued on 25 February 2026, the Upper Tribunal directed that this appeal be determined on the papers.
Background
3. The appellant is a citizen of Georgia who claimed asylum in the UK in December 2021. She claims to fear persecution in Georgia as a high-profile opponent of the ruling Georgia Dream regime. The basis of her claim was set out in a statement dated 29 November 2023 and three substantive asylum interviews, conducted on 22 January 2024, 15 March 2024 and 15 April 2024. She said that she was [redacted] and an active member of the United National Movement. She said she had taken videos of [redacted] and had [engaged in a high-profile political protest]. She received multiple threatening phone calls, as well as threats from the police. In December 2021, she was beaten by a group of men in the lobby of her apartment building. They threatened to kill her and her daughter. She left the country ten days later.
4. The respondent refused the appellant’s claim on 21 May 2024. She accepted that the appellant was a member of the United National Movement, “had some notoriety from the media” and had participated in political activities. She did not accept that she was of adverse interest to the Georgian authorities. She relied on independent country evidence purporting to show that there was freedom of political expression in Georgia and rejected the appellant’s account of having been attacked because of a lack of “evidence or documentation” to support it. Her account of the attack was accepted to be consistent, but lacking in detail and specificity.
5. The appellant appealed. Her appeal was listed for hearing on 23 October 2025, and on 17 October 2025, her solicitors uploaded a 392-page bundle of evidence, including a witness statement, documentary evidence with certified translations and a country expert report. The grounds of appeal say that a message was received on the MyHMCTS portal stating that “This evidence is late and will not be in the hearing bundle. A Tribunal judge will look at the reasons why your evidence is late and decide if it can be part of your appeal.”.
6. On the morning of the hearing, the appellant’s solicitors wrote to the Tribunal to apply to withdraw on the grounds of a conflict of interest. The appellant informed the FtT that she was content to proceed without representation. She gave oral evidence and was cross-examined, as well as making closing submissions. Her evidence on cross-examination was set out at [14]-[19]. I consider that [14]-[17] are relevant to my decision:
“14. With reference to Facebook, the appellant was asked whether she has only 911 ‘friends’. She acknowledged that that may be so. She was asked about a video which Mr Rashid said had had 175 viewings after three years. The appellant said that that was incorrect. There had been 9,310 views and there are others. Mr Rashid said that the viewings were limited and put it to the appellant that therefore is she not as well-known in Georgia as she makes out? The appellant strongly refuted that suggestion, saying that she has much evidence, including correspondence from a President. In particular the appellant referred to a letter from a President thanking her for taking certain action […].
“15. The appellant confirmed [the details of the action] and she said when it had taken place. The appellant confirmed that she had not received any physical attacks as a consequence, but there had been many calls for her to be stopped. She had been attacked later and was told that she would be arrested. Asked who had been making those threats by telephone, the appellant referred to ‘government people’. The appellant confirmed that she had reported such to the police and had told colleagues. However, the police are associated with, and belong to the Georgian Dream (the governing party), and therefore they had done nothing. Asked if there was any police report, the appellant said that she had taken a report to her previous representatives. However, that company had lost too many items she had given them and her previous solicitor there had left the firm. Much evidence had been lost, but she had been able to replace some of it.
“16. The appellant was asked whether the police had been present when she had been protesting. The appellant so confirmed and said that the protest had been peaceful. It was put to her by Mr Rashid that therefore the police had shown that they could protect her? The appellant said that she had actually been protected by those also present, up to 3,000 people. In those circumstances no-one would have attacked her. She had also had particular colleagues present. Asked whether she had been attacked by Georgian Dream supporters, the appellant said that she had also [redacted], with reference to videos. She was showing how corrupt the system was. She had been attacked by Georgian Dream members and therefore had come to this country. That had occurred in December 2021.
“17. The appellant was asked if she had any medical, political or photographic evidence relating to any stated attack. The appellant asked how she could have provided that. She was also asked about any letter from emergency services.”
7. In the challenged decision, the FtT made no explicit mention of the appellant’s late bundle of evidence. The only country evidence referred to was the respondent CPIN. It considered that this did not establish that “there is a widespread threat to political activists who are in opposition to the Georgian Dream Party.”: [33] At [34], it described the appellant’s account as follows:
“The appellant had previously been very open in her public protests in 2012 and 2021 and yet she was never subject to arrest or detention by the authorities. She made reference to certain threats, but it does not appear, even on her account, that any threats were followed through and therefore the appellant’s liberty was at no point interrupted. The appellant was at all times at liberty to report matters to the police and to seek their protection, even thought she considered them to have links to the governing party.”
8. At [36], the FtT found that there was no “reason to disbelieve” the appellant’s account of her “past activities and experiences in Georgia” but that she had not established that she was at risk from the state or any non-state operative.
The appellant’s grounds of appeal
9. The appellant raised three grounds of appeal. The first was that the FtT had not considered her late evidence, and that this was procedurally unfair. She was refused permission on this ground because the FtT considered that the determination indicated that the late evidence had in fact been considered.
10. The appellant was granted permission on the second and third grounds.
11. Ground Two is that the FtT’s statement at [34] that “it does not appear, even on her account, that any threats were followed through” was a material mistake of fact, given that the appellant did claim that she had been physically attacked by Georgian Dream members, as recorded at [15] and [16].
12. Ground Three is that the FtT found at [35] that “the key test […] centred around the profile of the individual who claims to be in fear of return” but did not make a clear finding on what the appellant’s profile was. Alternatively, any finding that the appellant did not have a high profile was against the weight of evidence or inadequately reasoned, given the supporting evidence in the appellant’s bundle, including a country expert report. Although this is not set out in the grounds, the country expert report describes the appellant as a “well-known political activist” and a “public figure”.
13. In her Rule 24 response, the respondent accepted that both grounds are made out. She submitted that “due to the nature of the error the appeal should be remitted to the FTT to be decided de novo.” In a letter dated 26 February 2026, however, the appellant’s solicitors asked for the appeal to be retained in the Upper Tribunal with the “finding that there is no reason to disbelieve the appellant’s account” being preserved.
14. As set out above, the FtT had before it a detailed statement by the appellant and records of her substantive interviews, and it had the benefit of hearing from the appellant in oral evidence. It then found that there was “no reason to disbelieve” the appellant’s account. I consider that this should be read as a finding that all of the facts of the appellant’s account were accepted, to the low standard of proof applicable in her pre-28 June 2022 asylum claim. This necessarily includes the attack on the appellant in December 2021, which had been a core aspect of her claim throughout and was the subject of cross-examination before the FtT.
15. I have considered whether this general acceptance of the appellant’s account can be preserved, given that the FtT appears to have made a finding of fact that was inconsistent with that account, which was that none of the threats against the appellant had been carried out. I have decided that the general acceptance of the appellant’s account should nonetheless be preserved. This is because the finding that the threats had not been carried out was not based on any reason for rejecting the appellant’s credibility and is followed by an explicit acceptance of her account.
16. When read in context, moreover, the FtT’s finding appears to be that no threats of arrest or detention by the authorities were carried out. If the respondent had not conceded that Ground Two was made out, this reading of the FtT’s reasoning might have led me to conclude that no material mistake of fact was in fact made; the appellant did say that she had been threatened by the police but did not say that she had been arrested. However, as Ground Three is also conceded, the FtT’s findings on risk on return must be set aside in any event.
17. Because the appellant’s account of events in Georgia has been accepted, the fact-finding that remains to be carried out is limited.
18. I therefore conclude that it is appropriate to retain this appeal for determination in the Upper Tribunal, with the finding that the appellant’s account of events in Georgia is accepted preserved.

Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 6 November 2025 is set aside in part.
The appeal will be retained for remaking before the Upper Tribunal.
Directions
1) The appeal is adjourned to be re-made in the Upper Tribunal at a face-to-face hearing, on a date to be fixed, with a time estimate of three hours.
2) If either party wishes to adduce any further evidence, this must be served in electronic format on the other party and the Upper Tribunal at least 10 working days before the next hearing, accompanied by an application made pursuant to rule 15(2A) of the Tribunals Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008.
3) If the appellant or any other witness wishes to give oral evidence, they must provide a witness statement capable of standing as evidence in chief, to be served in accordance with direction (2) above.
4) A Georgian interpreter will be required if the appellant intends to give evidence, or if the respondent intends to cross-examine the appellant. The parties are reminded of their obligation to further the overriding objective, including efficiency. If either party forms a view that this appeal can be heard by way of submissions only, they must write to the Upper Tribunal promptly.
5) Any skeleton arguments must be served in electronic format on the other party and the Upper Tribunal at least 5 working days before the next hearing.

E. Ruddick

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
13 March 2026