Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2026-000963 & UI-2026-000964

First-tier Tribunal No:
HU/58809/2022, LH/04620/2024 HU/58810/2022, LH/04621/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 21 July 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BARTLETT

Between

MR CHAUDHARY MAZHAR HUSSSAIN
MRS AYESHA SADDIQA MAZHAR
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Abbas
For the Respondent: Ms Isherwood, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 1 July 2026

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellants are husband and wife. They are both nationals of Pakistan. They made applications for leave to remain in the United Kingdom on the basis of their private and family life on 17 December 2021. The respondent refused the applications on 8 November 2022. The appellants appealed those decisions to the First-tier Tribunal. A hearing took place on 17 October 2025 and a decision was promulgated on 5 December 2025 refusing their case on all grounds.

2. The appellants appealed the First-tier Tribunal’s decision and permission was granted on the first three grounds of appeal only.

3. The appellants are elderly nationals of Pakistan. At the date of the First-tier Tribunal hearing they were 76 and 67 years of age respectively. They entered the United Kingdom on visit visas on 3 February 2021. They have remained in the United Kingdom since that date. The appellants have three daughters who all currently reside in the United Kingdom, none are British Citizens and only one is settled here. The appellants live with those daughters in one house which was brought after the sale of the appellants’ property in Pakistan. The basis of the appellants’ claim is that they suffer from multiple health conditions such that they cannot return to Pakistan.

4. The issues to be decided at the First-tier Tribunal was set out as follows:

a. Whether the appellants would face very significant obstacles to reintegrating into Pakistan;
b. the general proportionality of interference with article 8 ECHR rights.

5. The appellant’s grounds of appeal can be summarised as follows:

a. ground one - errors in the assessment of very significant obstacles and in particular that because of the appellants health they no longer have capacity to participate in life in Pakistan, so as to have a reasonable opportunity to be accepted there and operate on a day-to-day basis in society. Further, the judge erred in stating that the appellants’ case only amounted to general assertions about stigma attached to mental health issues, the lack of a care sector and societal expectations on children to care for their relatives. It is submitted that the judge erred and failed to take into account clear evidence before him;
b. ground 2 - the judge failed to have regard to key evidence and his findings in respect of mental health issues were erroneous
c. ground three - article 8 proportionality. The grounds submit that the judge failed to consider and give weight to country evidence and factual evidence and that the judge failed to consider the appellants’ daughters belief that a return to Pakistan will result in a deterioration of the appellants’ emotional, mental and physical health.

Submissions

6. I heard submissions from the appellants and respondent’s representatives which are recorded in the record of proceedings. I mean no disrespect by not setting out those in full here.

Decision

Ground one - very significant obstacles

7. There were two parts to the appellants’ submission on this ground. The first was that the judge erred in his assessment of the evidence and in particular his conclusion at [33]

“The difficulty the Appellants have in this case is that there is a dearth of evidence about what care is or is not available to them in Pakistan. General assertions were made by both witnesses about the difficulties with care in Pakistan. This includes the general stigma attached to mental health issues, the lack of a care sector and the societal expectation that children should care for their elderly relatives.”

8. I find that this submission has no merit. The appellants’ skeleton argument identifies two paragraphs from the respondents CPIN and an article from Dawn which they say are evidence supporting their claims.

9. However, at paragraph 34 the judge sets out the following:

“However, these generalities, fall a long way short of showing that these Appellants have care needs which cannot be accessed or afforded in Pakistan. Dr Mazhar accepted in evidence that they have not to date made enquiries of care available in Pakistan. She went on to acknowledge that ‘if you pay, you can get help’ but her concern was about trusting such people not to steal from her parents or kill them. She asked ‘how can I trust a stranger?’. Regrettably, many people have to trust strangers to care for their family members, even where that is not their desired arrangement. The burden is on the Appellants to prove that suitable care is not available or not affordable. Merely posing rhetorical questions about what care might be available, does not establish that there is inadequate care available to the Appellants in Pakistan. The family simply have not researched the issue because this is not what they desire. “

10. I find that paragraph 34 sets out the deficiencies in the evidence and that the limited extracts from the respondents CPIN and Dawn article fall a long way short of providing sufficient evidence that the appellants’ discharged the burden of proof which lay on them.

11. This part of ground one has no merit and cannot establish an error of law either by itself or in conjunction with the rest of the grounds.

12. The second part of this ground is that because of the appellants’ health conditions and in particular the first appellant’s dementia and in general the nature of their (mental) health needs, the appellants could not integrate into Pakistan. The grounds submitted that the judge erroneously failed to consider this.

13. At the hearing I asked Mr Abbas if his submission in relation to this part of ground one included the argument that the appellants could not, because of their health conditions, integrate in any country. Mr Abbas initially answered that they cannot be without family members. I told Mr Abbas that he had not answered my question and I repeated it. Mr Abbas said that it would be difficult for them to integrate anywhere and the ability to live their private live could be assisted and aided by family members. I put it to Mr Abbas that if their integration relied on family members the difficulty with his case was that the appellants could return to Pakistan with family members (as the judge had explicitly set out).

14. This part of ground one fails on several basis.

15. Firstly, the judge expressly considered this at [32] and states:

“The only real basis for asserting that the Appellants would have very significant obstacles to reintegrating in Pakistan, seems to be their health and care needs.”

16. Further, the appellants must establish that it is the respondent’s decision or action which interferes with their private life. In this case it is not the decision of the respondent which interferes with their private life, their difficulties, if any with integration arise from their own inherent medical conditions and this is the case wherever they are located in the world.

17. Mr Abbas referred me to SSHD v Kamara [2016] EWCA Civ 813, which the judge referred to, and its test that integration is a broad evaluative judgement. The judge clearly had the correct test in mind and he applied it. I was not referred to any cases which supported Mr Abbas’s argument that the inherent limitation of an individual as a result of their ill-health to their ability to reintegrate to their country of nationality could and in fact did amount to a very significant obstacles.

18. Consideration must also be given to the judge’s findings that the appellants failed to demonstrate that their care needs cannot be met in Pakistan. In this context and the judge’s findings that the appellants’ case rested on generalisations, the argument that they cannot re-integrate at all into Pakistan is unsustainable and was rejected by the judge at [35].

19. Finally, Mr Abbas’ argument appeared to be that the appellants can integrate if their daughters are with them. As the judge set out at [44] “There has been insufficient evidence to show that it would be unreasonable for their two daughters to relocate to Pakistan.” The judge has addressed this issue.

20. I find that the judge’s findings about the daughters relocating to Pakistan with the appellants contain no error and are consistent with the case of Ribeli v ECO Pretoria [2018] EWCA Civ 611 which is cited at some length by the judge. This point entirely disposes of appeal ground one.

21. This ground must fail and there is no error of law.

Ground two - mental health issues

22. This ground has no merit. The judgement sets out that all the medical evidence was treated as reliable [20], the judge accepts that the appellants took sertraline and the judge sets out a detailed account of their health conditions and medical letters in the summary of medical evidence section. He took these into account in making his decision. Mr Abbas’ submission was that because the appellants took sertraline, there was a letter saying that they suffered from low mood and because one of the appellants’ daughters, who is a doctor says that he suffers from depression, the judge should have found that the appellants had mental health conditions.

23. I said to Mr Abbas that low mood was not a mental health condition and he stated that it was. No evidence has been presented to me that low mood is a mental health condition. The judge recognised that the appellants had low mood and therefore it is not clear to me where Mr Abbas’ argument takes him.

24. There is no diagnosis of a mental health condition in any of the evidence. Any submission that Mr Abbas attempts to make to the contrary is clearly erroneous because all he could point me to was what I have set out in para 22 above. The appellant’s daughter did not appear as an expert witness and I do not find that the judge fell into error by not accepting her statement that she believed the appellant suffered from depression was a diagnosis of a mental health condition.

25. I find that this ground not made out. Nothing identified by the appellants amounts to an error on the part of the judge. The submissions are simply a disagreement with the judge and nothing more.

Ground three - the proportionality exercise

26. Permission to appeal was granted in respect of ground 3 only because if ground 1 and/or 2 contained an error the proportionality exercise would be infected by any such error. The grant of permission stated “The FtT’s consideration of this issue is careful, detailed and made with reference to evidence and case law”.

27. I have found that grounds one and two fail and this creates some difficulties for ground three succeeding. However, I have considered it independently. The part of the grounds that submit that the judge failed to consider and give weight to country and background evidence in respect of the proportionality assessment is without merit. As set out above the Judge found that there was a dearth of information [33] and what was provided was generalities [34]. This is a fair categorisation of the CPIN and Dawn article and one which was open to the judge in the context of this case.

28. The other part of this ground is that the judge failed to take into account the appellants daughters ultimately believe returning to Pakistan will result in a deterioration of the appellants’ emotional, mental and physical health.

29. The judge’s proportionality decision is set out between paragraphs 38 and 47. Paragraph 47 has 10 sub paragraphs and is the balancing exercise. This is a detailed and comprehensive exercise. The submissions rely on a belief held by the appellants’ daughters. The judge sets out that the appellants have health and care needs and that they have not shown that they could not access healthcare there as they had done in the past or obtain daily care. The judge sets out that the appellants’ daughters can return with them to Pakistan. Mr Abbas’ submission failed to identify evidence the judge did not consider that established that a return to Pakistan with one or more of their daughters would result in a deterioration of the appellants health.

30. Further, there can be no material error in this regard. The judge set out a very detailed and comprehensive proportionality assessment. The grounds seek to argue that one very small point carry such weight that it would undermine the entire assessment. This is clearly incorrect and it is a matter of judgement for the judge to consider what is relevant to the proportionality exercise and what weight to give it. The judge has carried out this function conscientiously and provided detailed reasons.

Notice of Decision

The Decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 5 December 2025 did not contain a material error of law. The appeal is dismissed.

Judge Bartlett

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

7 July 2026