Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-000251
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/65657/2023
LP/04281/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 13th of October 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BUTLER

Between

AQ
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr J Frost, counsel
For the Respondent: Ms J Isherwood, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 27 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 the appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The Appellant, a citizen of Pakistan, appeals with permission against the determination of FTTJ Harris (‘the Judge’) dated 23 October 2025. The Appellant’s protection claim is based on his fear of the Ahle Hadith sect. He states that Ahle Hadith mullahs accused him of blasphemy and he and his family subsequently faced a number of reprisals.
2. The Judge dismissed the Appellant’s appeal on the basis that he did not accept the Appellant’s account to be credible, including due to the application of s. 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004.
Grounds of appeal and submissions
3. First-tier Tribunal Judge Mulready granted permission to appeal on the grounds raised by the Appellant, other than the ground relating to a claimed failure to apply the Joint Presidential Guidance on vulnerable appellants.
4. Before summarising the Appellant’s grounds, I note that the grounds of appeal as drafted do not comply with the guidance given in Rai & Dam v SSHD [2025] UKUT 150 (IAC), which directs that:
“Each point of law, where there is more than one, must be clearly and succinctly identified as a numbered ground of appeal with sufficient detail so that the Tribunal and the parties are able to identify the essential issue raised by that ground. The grounds of appeal will rarely need to be lengthy. Each ground of appeal should identify succinctly, in clearly numbered paragraphs or (sub paragraphs):
a.     The relevant passage(s) in the decision of the FtT.
b.     Any relevant primary or secondary legislation only to the extent necessary to do so.
c.      Any authority binding upon the judge that is capable of supporting the ground.
d.     Brief submissions proving a short explanation to support the ground.”
5. The grounds of appeal are not numbered or clearly disaggregated. There are no references to paragraph numbers within the determination. It is also difficult in places to identify what error of law is being advanced.
6. Having the benefit of Mr Frost’s submissions, I can summarise the grounds as follows:
a. The Judge engaged in speculative reasoning by concluding that the Appellant’s credibility was damaged because, on his account, those hostile to him did not refer to blasphemy beyond the initial incident in 2019. Mr Frost characterised this as both outcome and process irrationality (‘Ground 1’).
b. The Judge did not engage with the probative value of video footage (which the Judge accepted showed an attempted kidnapping but found did not support the Appellant’s case as to the identity of the perpetrators) taken in the round, and essentially required corroboration of the Appellant’s account as to their identity (‘Ground 2’).
c. The Judge misinterpreted s. 8 of the 2004 by elevating it to being an essentially determinative factor (‘Ground 3’).
7. Ms Isherwood invited me to find that there was no material error of law. Her overarching submission was that the grounds showed mere disagreement with the Judge’s findings. Sher submitted that the Judge had taken a structured approach and correctly identified the low standard of proof which applies in this case (which is a pre-Nationality and Borders Act 2022 case). She also submitted that the findings the Judge made were open to him on the evidence and he was entitled to take into account the section 8 points.
8. In reply, Mr Frost explained that the Judge had strayed into error by looking at the evidence atomistically. He explained that the wider risks of religious persecution in this case stemmed from the initial blasphemy incident and it was speculative of the Judge to assert that the sect would necessarily act in the way he identified.
Analysis
9. I accept that the determination contains material errors of law.
10. Ground 1. The Judge’s treatment of the Appellant’s evidence that the Ahle Hadith had made no specific reference to blasphemy after the initial 2019 incident formed part of his analysis of the Appellant’s credibility, on which the appeal turned. His analysis was as follows:
a. The 2019 blasphemy accusation was a “central part of the appellant’s claim” (§32);
b. It was “striking and odd” that, after the 2019 blasphemy accusation, the Appellant’s enemies “make no further reference to or accusation of him being a blasphemer” (§35);
c. “[…] what I find concerns me is not matters of chronology but what is and is not said by the appellant about the behaviour of Ahle Hadith following the October 2019 blasphemy accusation. In his description of subsequent events, the appellant makes no mention of any attempt by Ahle Hadith to publicise that the appellant is a blasphemer in order to escalate public hostility and danger, including the danger of mob violence, towards him. I find this inconsistent with the appellant’s case concerning the long standing enmity towards him and desire to hurt him on the part of Ahle Hadith and the opportunity for serious harm that can be caused not just by Ahle Hadith members but others in Pakistani society toward someone accused of blasphemy” (§37);
d. “I find the absence in the account given in the appellant’s 2022 witness statement of blasphemy allegations being made by Ahle Hadith against the appellant during the claimed events of 2020 damaging to credibility. It damages the credibility of the claim that Ahle Hadith at any time have accused the appellant of blasphemy and also raises a general doubt in my mind about the overall reliability of the appellant as a witness” (§39).
11. It is therefore clear that the Judge placed material adverse weight on the fact that the blasphemy allegation was not repeated. In so doing, I consider that the Judge strayed into error by placing weight on matters not within evidence or reasonably within judicial knowledge. The rejection of an account on grounds of implausibility must be done “on reasonably drawn inferences and not simply on conjecture or speculation” (Awala v SSHD [2005] CSOH 73, §24). There is no objective metric of how the ‘reasonable persecutor’ may act. I note that in Y v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] EWCA Civ 1223, at §25 Keene LJ said the tribunal of fact should be cautious before finding an account to be inherently incredible, because there is a considerable risk that it will be over-influenced by its own views of what is or is not plausible, and those views will have inevitably been influenced by the judge’s own background in this country and by the customs and ways of our own society.
12. The Judge’s reasoning about what Ahle Hadith mullahs and their supports might have done and said involved making of unreasonable inferences and / or unreasonably relied upon matters not within the scope of evidence (or judicial knowledge). This by itself would be sufficient to dispose of the appeal in the Appellant’s favour, given the holistic nature of the credibility assessment and the central part this factor played in the Judge’s reasoning. However, I shall deal with the remaining grounds briefly below in the interests of completeness.
13. Ground 2. I accept that the Judge in essence required corroboration of the Appellant’s account that the incidents in the video footage were perpetrated by the group he fears. There is of course no legal duty on asylum seekers to corroborate their claim (MAH (Egypt) v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 216, §87). While, as noted by the Court of Appeal in MAH, there may be circumstances in which the failure by a claimant to obtain evidence which could reasonably have been obtained, this appeal was at the opposite end of that spectrum; the Appellant had obtained evidence which the Judge accepted depicted events consistent with his account. This was potentially significant material which had to be weighed in the balance holistically. Instead, the Judge rejected the evidence and gave it only limited weight on the basis that, even when supported by the credible evidence of RN, it was not “sufficient to demonstrate that the attempted kidnapping was, as claimed, part of escalating violence over this period of days, where Ahle Hadith sect members were targeting the appellant’s family” (§28).
14. I am mindful that the weight to be given to evidence is principally a matter for first-instance judges and should not be interfered with by judges on appeal absent strong reasons to do so. However, this error is not a dispute as to the weight given to the evidence; it is a misdirection in law by the Judge of requiring corroboration beyond that which had already been provided. The Judge fell into error not by asking how the evidence weighed in the balance but by viewing it as inherently damaged by the fact it did not confirm the identity of the perpetrators.
15. Ground 3. I am not persuaded that there is an error of law regarding the section 8 analysis. While there were factors which the Judge could have taken into account (including the Appellant’s evidence that he did initially intend to return to Pakistan and that he was suffering from depression), I do not consider that this rises to the level of legal error. The Appellant arrived in the UK in 2020 and did not claim asylum until he was arrested by immigration officers in 2022. This was, on any analysis, a significant delay in claiming asylum which the Judge could reasonably find lacked reasonable explanation on the material before him.
Disposal
16. Mr Frost took a neutral position on whether the appeal should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal or retained in the Upper Tribunal. Ms Isherwood submitted that, if a full de novo hearing would be required, then the matter should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal.
17. As the errors identify above go to the heart of the Judge’s consideration of the Appellant’s credibility and thus the factual findings made in the determination, I find that none of the Judge’s findings can be preserved and therefore a full de novo hearing will be required.
18. I note the Practice Statements of the Immigration and Asylum Chambers of the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal dated 11 June 2018 and the discussion on this topic in Majera v SSHD [2025] EWCA Civ 1597. The presumption within the Practice Statements is that matters will be retained in the Upper Tribunal, which can deal with de novo hearings where appropriate. There was no unfairness at first instance and I do not consider that the fact-finding is so extensive as to make it more appropriate for the matter to be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal.
19. The matter shall be retained in the Upper Tribunal for a full rehearing with no factual findings preserved. I have issued directions in relation to that hearing herewith.
Notice of Decision
The appeal is allowed.

Miranda Butler

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

28 May 2026