Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL Case No: UI-2026-000840
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/51192/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 17 July 2026

Before

Deputy upper tribunal JUDGE Kelly

Between

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Appellant
and

AS
(ANONYMITY ORDERED)
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms E Blackburn, Senior Home Officer Presenting Officer
For the Respondent: Ms S Khan, Counsel instructed by Collingwood Immigration Services LLP

Heard at Bradford on 3rd July 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. AS is a citizen of Algeria. The Secretary of State refused his protection and human rights claims on 6th December 2023. However, his appeal against that refusal was allowed by First-tier Tribunal Judge Horton on 23rd October 2024. The Secretary of State has been granted permission to appeal against Judge Horton’s decision. Hence the matter came before me.
2. I extend the anonymity direction made in the First-tier Tribunal for the same reasons that it gave when making it.
3. For convenience, I shall hereafter describe the parties in accordance with their status in the First-tier Tribunal; that is to say, AS will be referred to as “the appellant” and the Secretary of State will be referred to as “the respondent”.
Findings of the First-tier Tribunal
4. The respondent had accepted that the appellant was a gay man – and thus a member of ‘a particular social group’ for the purposes of the Refuge Convention - and that he was also a citizen of Algeria. The respondent did not however accept his claim that his membership of that group would (a) place him at risk of persecution, or (b) pose “very significant obstacles” to his integration on return to Algeria.
5. The First-tier Tribunal judge upheld the respondent’s position regarding the former [27 to 29] but allowed the appeal regarding the latter under paragraph 276ADE of the Immigration Rules and under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [30 to 33].
6. In rejecting the appellant’s asylum claim, and despite accepting that he had been assaulted, beaten, and (on a separate occasion) threatened with a knife due to his sexual orientation, the judge found that the evidence did not justify departing from OO (Gay Men) Algeria CG [2016] UKUT 00065 (IAC) wherein it was found that LGBTI people are unlikely to face persecution or serious harm from non-state actors outside their families.
7. The judge’s reasons for concluding that the appellant would face ‘very significant obstacles’ to his integration on return to Algeria are set out a paragraph 33 of his decision:
Upon considering the Immigration Rules, I find that there are very significant obstacles to integration in Algeria if required to leave the UK. In my opinion he will not participate in society in Algeria as an openly gay man, there is not a reasonable opportunity to be accepted there, to be able to operate on a day-to-day basis in that society and to build up within a reasonable time a variety of human relationships to give substance to the individual's private life. Furthermore, he cannot be expected to indefinitely "put up with living discreetly for fear of the potentially dire consequences of living openly" (per HJ Iran para 80). In reality, he would shrink from social interaction and not live a meaningful life as an openly gay man.
The grounds of appeal.
8. Whilst particularized within four sub-paragraphs, there is on the face of it but a single ground of appeal. Ms Blackburn agreed that this ground can be conveniently expressed as the judge having reached mutually contradictory conclusions concerning the appellant’s respective asylum and human rights claims.
9. That said, paragraph 1(d) also complains that the judge’s finding that the appellant would face ‘very significant obstacles to integration’ on return, ignored (i) the fact that he had previously worked as a foreman with an electric company, and (ii) background country information reports concerning his prospects of obtaining employment and accommodation, and of accessing, “healthcare or other civic rights afforded to him as a national of Algeria”. It is further asserted that there is, “no evidence that the appellant will be prevented from reintegrating within Algerian society within a reasonable period of time”. From an abundance of caution, I will treat this as a discrete ground of appeal.
Analysis
10. I begin by considering the main ground of appeal; namely, that it was an error of law for the judge not to have treated the appellant’s respective asylum and human rights claims as standing and falling together.
11. Whilst there may often in practice be a significant degree of overlap between the concepts of ‘an act of persecution’ and ‘an interference with the right to respect for private life’, they are qualitatively different as is demonstrated by the following instruments.
12. The Refugee Convention does not define an ‘act of persecution’. However, Article 9(1) of Directive 2011/95/EU (‘The Qualification Directive’) is often cited as encapsulating its essence:
In order to be regarded as an act of persecution within the meaning of Article 1(A) of the Geneva Convention, an act must:
(a) be sufficiently serious by its nature or repetition as to constitute a severe violation of basic human rights, in particular the rights from which derogation cannot be made under Article 15(2) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; or
(b) be an accumulation of various measures, including violations of human rights which is sufficiently severe as to affect an individual in a similar manner as mentioned in point (a).
It will be noted that an ‘act of persecution’ is thereby defined as, “a severe violation of basic human rights” [emphasis added]. The “basic human rights … from which derogation cannot be made under Article 15(2)” is a reference to the following unqualified rights under the Human Rights Convention: ‘the right to life’ (article 2), the prohibition of torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment (article 3), the prohibition of slavery and forced labour (article 4), and the prohibition of punishment without law (article 7). Whilst this list does not purport to be exhaustive, it is nevertheless significant that it does not include (amongst others) the qualified right to respect for private and family life under article 8.
13. By contrast, paragraph 276(vi) ADE (now Appendix PL 5.1(b)) of the Immigration Rules contemplates that there will be an unjustifiably harsh interference with the right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the Human Rights Convention in circumstances where, “there would be very significant obstacles to the applicant’s integration into the country where they would have to live if required to leave the UK”. As the judge noted at paragraph 12 of his decision, the assessment of “very significant obstacles” to integration calls for a broad evaluative judgement of whether the applicant will be enough of an insider to understand how life in the society in the country of return is carried on, and a capacity to participate in it so as to have a reasonable opportunity to be accepted there, to be able to operate on a day-to-day basis in that society, and to build up within a reasonable time a variety of human relationships to give substance to the individual’s private or family life.
14. As I previously acknowledged, ‘acts of persecution’ and ‘unjustifiably harsh interference with the right to respect for private life’ are not mutually exclusive concepts. They may therefore stand together. It does not however follow from this - as the main ground of appeal suggests - that they necessarily fall together. To the contrary, there was nothing inherently inconsistent in the judge’s finding that whilst the appellant did not face a real risk of suffering acts constituting a severe violation of his basic human rights on return to Algeria, he would nevertheless face very significant obstacles to his societal integration. There is thus no merit in the ground of appeal that claims otherwise.
15. I now turn to what I have treated as being a discrete ground of appeal as set out at paragraph 1(d) of the grounds; namely, that the judge gave inadequate reasons for his finding that the appellant would face very significant obstacles to his integration on return to Algeria (see paragraph 8, above). Many of the factors that the respondent complains were left out of account by the judge in his assessment – such as the availability to the appellant of, “healthcare or other civic rights afforded to him as a national of Algeria” – would have been particularly relevant to the question (had it been raised) of whether the appellant’s circumstances that he might face on return would surmount the high bar for engagement of the prohibition of inhuman treatment under Article 3. However, the absence of such circumstances was not necessarily relevant to an assessment of the nature and extent of any obstacles to integration he might face under Article 8. To put the matter another way, the existence of very significant obstacles to integration was not negated by the absence of other such potential obstacles. Ultimately, this assessment called for a broad evaluative judgement. To succeed on this ground, therefore, the respondent would need to establish that the exercise of that judgement was perverse. However, whilst it may be that another judge would have arrived at a different conclusion, I am satisfied that the judge’s decision in this case was one that was reasonably open to him for the reasons that he gave, and that this ground of appeal is thus merely a quarrel with those reasons.

Notice of Decision
16. The appeal is dismissed and the decision of the First-tier Tribunal therefore stands

David Kelly Date: 4th July 2026

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber