Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-000727
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/00497/2025
PA/50606/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

23rd July 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE NEVILLE

Between

MF
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr A Slatter, counsel instructed by Nasim & Co Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr M Pugh, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 1 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 national of Bangladesh, appeals against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (“FtT”) promulgated on 31 December 2025, dismissing his appeal on protection and human rights grounds. Permission to appeal was granted on grounds 2 to 5 only. Ground 1, challenging the FtT’s assessment of the protection claim, was refused permission and was not renewed. The FtT’s findings at [35]-[43] of the decision therefore stand. The issues before the Upper Tribunal concern only the appellant's claims under Articles 3 and 8 ECHR.
2. At the hearing I had raised whether the FtT’s intention to limit the scope of permission was effective, given the decision of Safi & Ors (permission to appeal decisions) [2018] UKUT 388 (IAC), and I heard submissions on Ground 1 on a cautionary basis. Having considered the matter I find that permission was refused on Ground 1. Considering Safi at [17] and [19], the appellant was properly on notice that permission had been refused on Ground 1.
3. The appellant and his wife have experienced a series of significant health and family difficulties. They lost two children during pregnancy in 2022 and 2024. Their son was born prematurely in June 2025 at 29 weeks’ gestation, required neonatal intensive care, and remained under specialist follow-up at the date of the hearing. The appellant suffers from major depressive disorder and prolonged grief disorder. His wife has been diagnosed with obstetric antiphospholipid syndrome (“APS”).
4. The FtT accepted those matters and treated them as forming the appellant’s case on Articles 3 and 8 ECHR. It rejected the former, finding that mental health treatment was available in Bangladesh and had not been shown to be inaccessible to him. Turning to Article 8, the FtT concluded that the appellant would not face very significant obstacles to integration in Bangladesh, that his son's best interests did not require the family to remain in the United Kingdom, and that the family's connection with the graves of the appellant's deceased children could be maintained through future visits. Having weighed the relevant factors in the round, it concluded that removal would be proportionate.
Ground 2
5. I deal first with Ground 2, concerning the FtT’s treatment of the evidence relating to the appellant’s child and the assessment of his best interests.
6. At [50], the FtT accepted that the child had been born prematurely at 29 weeks’ gestation, had required neonatal intensive care, remained vulnerable, required ongoing specialist follow-up for neurodevelopment, ophthalmology and growth, and had been re-admitted to hospital in September 2025 in respiratory distress. The FtT also recorded the appellant's evidence that he and his wife had been advised against moving away from the hospital where the child's medical team was based because that team knew the child and his needs very well. The FtT nevertheless concluded at the end of that analysis that there was “no evidence to support a case that the child would be at greater peril or disadvantage in terms of his physical health or development in Bangladesh than if he remained in the UK”. Later returning to the issue at [60], the FtT referred to “the absence of evidence that the child would be at greater peril or disadvantage in terms of his physical health or development in Bangladesh than if he remained in the UK”.
7. The appellant argues that those conclusions were not open to the FtT in light of its earlier findings, or alternatively that the FtT failed adequately to explain why the accepted evidence did not establish disadvantage to the child on return.
8. Mr Pugh submitted that the FtT had not overlooked the evidence concerning the child's medical circumstances. Rather, the references at [50] and [60] to there being “no evidence” or an “absence of evidence” were to be understood as meaning no evidence capable of establishing that the child would be worse off in Bangladesh. The FtT had expressly recorded the child's premature birth, ongoing vulnerabilities and specialist follow-up, together with the appellant's evidence that the family had been advised not to move away from the child's treating team. However, there was no medical evidence addressing the availability of treatment in Bangladesh, no expert evidence linking the child's future prognosis to remaining under the present team, and no evidence that relocation to Bangladesh would place the child at greater peril or disadvantage than remaining in the United Kingdom. The evidence to which the FtT referred was limited advice not to move away from the local area, which was no doubt sensible but was not evidence of any actual harmful consequences upon relocation to Bangladesh capable of meeting the required test. Read fairly and in context, the FtT's reasoning was that the evidence relied upon by the appellant did not establish the proposition advanced on his behalf.
9. In approaching this ground I pay careful attention to the principles collated and summarised in the Practice Direction from the Senior President of Tribunals, Reasons for Decisions, in particular that a realistic and reasonably benevolent approach should be adopted such that decisions under appeal are read fairly and not hypercritically. The FtT's decision must be read as a whole. I essentially agree with Mr Pugh's submissions. It would have been preferable for the FtT to express its conclusion differently, but read fairly and in context, the FtT plainly did not overlook the evidence concerning the child's medical circumstances. It had just summarised that evidence in some detail. Rather, the FtT's point was that there was no evidence establishing that the child's accepted vulnerabilities, treatment needs and follow-up arrangements would place him at a greater peril or disadvantage in Bangladesh than in the United Kingdom. The FtT used similar comparative reasoning elsewhere in the decision, including when addressing the availability of treatment and support in Bangladesh for other members of the family. The conclusion challenged under this ground was therefore open to it.
10. In any event, the evidence relied upon by the appellant went no further than an asserted recommendation not to move away from the child's existing treating team because that team knew him and his needs well. Even taken at its highest, that evidence did not address the availability of like treatment in Bangladesh, identify any likely deterioration in the child's condition on return, or explain why equivalent care could not be provided there.
Ground 3
11. Ground 3 asserts that the FtT applied the wrong test when considering Article 8 through the prism of the test posed in the Immigration Rules. The correct test is whether there would be “very significant obstacles to integration”, whereas on two occasions the FtT referred to whether the appellant would be “unable within a reasonable [time] to function in society”. I am entirely satisfied that this is a simple drafting slip. The FtT had set out the correct test at the start of its analysis at [55]. I suspect that the FtT had in mind the word ‘operate’ used in the well-known discussion of this test in Secretary of State for the Home Department v Kamara [2016] EWCA Civ 813 at [14] and, as observed by Mr Pugh, the word ‘function’ had been used in the appellant’s witness statement when addressing the issue.
Ground 4
12. At [61] the FtT, in considering proportionality, considered it relevant that that the appellant and NS had an important personal connection to the place where their children are buried and would find an inability to visit very distressing. The FtT found that their connection:
61. …to the place of burial of two of the children, and them sharing that connection with their child, could be maintained by visits to the UK, albeit that such visits would not realistically be of anything close to the frequency which the Appellant and NS visit the site presently.
13. The appellant argues that this finding was not open to the FtT in the absence of evidence or findings that the appellant, NS or their child would be granted entry clearance to the UK for such visits, or of the practical and financial realities, and it being:
“well-established that it is [a] near impossibility for those who have indicated an intention to permanently reside in the UK (such as by claiming asylum) to later seek entry into the UK as a visitor in the future.”
14. I agree with Mr Pugh that this argument reverses the burden of proof. The appellant relying on the point as strengthening his case on Article 8, it was for him to show that visits would be unavailable or impractical, and no evidence is presented for the ‘well-established’ proposition presented in this ground. Even were an error established however, by reference to the rest of the decision I cannot accept that it would be material. The FtT did afford some weight to the reduced frequency of visits. This is furthermore a consideration that, while deserving of great compassion, is not inherently capable of affording significant weight when determining Article 8 proportionality.
Ground 5
15. Ground 5 concerns the FtT's assessment of the appellant’s Article 3 claim based on his mental health. The appellant argues that, whilst the FtT considered the availability of treatment in Bangladesh, it failed properly to analyse whether removal would expose him to a serious deterioration in his mental health or intense suffering. Reliance is placed upon the acceptance that the appellant suffers from major depressive disorder and prolonged grief disorder, his continuing grief arising from the loss of two children, his concerns regarding his wife and son, and the medical evidence provided.
16. The FtT was plainly aware of and engaged with the appellant’s individual circumstances. It devoted several paragraphs to the impact on the appellant's mental health of the loss of his children, the health of his son and the condition of his wife. Nor did the FtT limit itself to the bare question of whether treatment existed in Bangladesh. Rather, it considered the evidence of Dr Farooqui in some detail, including his observations regarding the shortage of psychiatrists and developing nature of psychological services. Having done so, it concluded that treatment for depression and related conditions was available in Bangladesh and had not been shown to be inaccessible to the appellant.
17. The FtT was likewise entitled to approach with caution Dr Farooqui's opinion regarding the recurrence of stressors upon return. As the FtT observed at [52], that opinion was predicated in part upon the appellant being returned to the environment of his past trauma "stemming from his political stance”. This was dealt with by the FtT’s findings on the protection claim, and the FtT was further entitled to take into account that the report did not address the changes in the political landscape. Also in that paragraph, the FtT was entitled to have regard to the lack of evidence on the appellant’s financial position and the likely costs of treatment. Against that background, it was open to the FtT to conclude that the medical evidence did not establish a real risk of treatment contrary to Article 3, and it can be seen to have properly addressed that issue by its findings.
Conclusion
18. The FtT’s task in this appeal was evaluative, and this Tribunal can only interfere if there was an error of law in the way it reached its conclusions. I am satisfied that there was no such error. Given the subject matter of the appeal and the appellant’s medical vulnerability I consider that derogation from the principle of open justice is justified, and continue the anonymity order made by the FtT.
Notice of Decision
(i) The appellant’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal is dismissed.
(ii) The decision of the First-tier Tribunal to dismiss the appellant’s appeal stands.

J Neville
Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

10 July 2026