Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-001185
UI-2026-001186, UI-2026-001188
UI-2026-001190, UI-2026-001194

First-tier Tribunal No:
HU/59851/2024
HU/59849/2024, HU/59855/2024
HU/59854/2024, HU/59853/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 5 June 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LODATO

Between

HASSAN ALI, UZMA HASSAN, MANAIL HASSAN,
MAHIRA HASSAN & AAYAN HASSAN
Appellants
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Maqsood, counsel
For the Respondent: Ms McKenzie, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 13 May 2026

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction and Background
1. The appellants appeal with permission against the decision, dated 7 January 2026, of a judge of the First-tier Tribunal (‘the judge’) to dismiss the appeals on human rights grounds.
2. The appeals arose in the context of this family’s claim to remain in the UK on Article 8 human rights grounds. The lead appellant arrived in the UK with entry clearance as a student on 27 September 2021. He was soon joined by his dependant wife and two children. The third child, and fifth appellant, was born in the UK. The judge concluded that the family would not experience very significant obstacles to integration on return to Pakistan and that the refusals of their claim would not be a disproportionate interference with their Article 8 rights to a family life or their private lives. Each of these conclusions is said to be infected by unlawfulness, irrationality and inadequate reasoning.
The Relevant Parts of the FTT Decision
3. It does not overburden this error of law decision to set out the judge’s findings on the points in issue. The judge reached the following findings, where relevant, between [11] and [17]:
[11] The appellants are all Pakistani nationals. The first appellant came to the United Kingdom to study in 2011. He married the second appellant in Pakistan in 2012. He then returned to the United Kingdom to complete his studies and he left the United Kingdom and returned to Pakistan in 2014. The first four appellants then returned to the United Kingdom in 2021 so that the first appellant could continue his studies here.
[12] The claim of all five appellants is that they have established family and private life in the United Kingdom over the time they have lived here such that they would face very significant obstacles to reintegration in Pakistan and in addition the respondent’s decision would result unjustifiably harsh consequences for the family members.
[13] I make the following findings of fact. The first appellant has had the benefit of obtaining qualifications in the United Kingdom on two occasions. The second appellant has worked in the United Kingdom since February 2022. The first appellant has had the benefit of medical treatment for his hepatitis B and he is currently monitored every six months by the NHS. The family speak Urdu at home. The three children have maintained a relationship with their grandparents in Pakistan by telephone. The parents of both the first and second appellants still live in Pakistan. The second appellant lived with the first appellant's parents for a period after their first child was born and while the first appellant was studying in the United Kingdom. The first appellant returned to Pakistan and reintegrated into society there in 2014 until his return to the United Kingdom in 2021.
[14] It was very clear from the evidence of both the first and second appellant that their concerns about returning to Pakistan were about the precarious economic position they might find themselves in. The first appellant told me how some of his former colleagues were now unemployed. It was harder to find work there than it had been the last time he lived in Pakistan. His parents are retired and sometimes stay with his sister because of that financial position.
[15] I come to the following conclusions. It was clear from the evidence that none of the appellants could have had a reasonable expectation to be granted leave to remain in the United Kingdom after the expiry of the first appellant's student visa on 9 January 2023. None of the children are qualifying children and because of their ages all three children have their best interests served by remaining with their parents in a family unit. I have taken into account Section 55 the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 when reaching this conclusion. I have also considered the position of the oldest child who is now 12 years old and may be beginning to form some kind of independent private life with friends. However, any private life she has developed has happened while her immigration status was precarious and particularly so since January 2023. The first appellant is receiving twice-yearly monitoring for his hepatitis B in the United Kingdom. The respondent has produced detailed information to show this treatment is available in Pakistan. The appellant has not produced any evidence to show he would not be able to access treatment in Pakistan. Both the first and second appellant told me that education was more expensive for their children in Pakistan. Therefore, while the family may prefer to remain in the United Kingdom because of economic considerations, I do not conclude on the balance of probabilities that they would face very significant obstacles to their integration in Pakistan.
[16] This is for the following reasons. The first appellant has gone through this process previously when he returned to Pakistan in 2014. Both the first and second appellants have their parents in Pakistan. Both the first and second appellants have gained valuable work experience and education qualifications whilst in the United Kingdom. The three youngest appellants will be returning to Pakistan with the support of their parents. All five appellants speak Urdu at home. I conclude, therefore, all five appellants would be able to return to Pakistan and would not face very significant obstacles on their return. They therefore did not meet the requirements of Appendix PL of the immigration rules.
[17] I have considered whether the decision of the respondent is a disproportionate interference with the appellant's Article 8 rights outside the immigration rules. Clearly any family life that the appellants enjoy will not be interfered with as they would be leaving as a family unit. However, I have assumed that the first four appellants enjoy a degree of private life within the United Kingdom because they have studied or worked here. I have, therefore, gone on to assess the proportionality of the respondent’s decision in light of any interference with the private lives of those appellants. On one side of this balancing exercise I find that the respondent is entitled to maintain effective immigration controls. In addition, I note that the first appellant continues to receive treatment on the NHS sometime after he no longer had any leave to remain. On the appellants’ side of the balancing exercise, I can only conclude that there may be some inconvenience and challenge in re-establishing themselves in Pakistan. However this is not significant enough to tip the proportionality assessment in favour of the appellants. I conclude, therefore, that the respondent’s decision was proportionate and is not in breach of section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Appeal to the Upper Tribunal
4. The appellants applied for permission to appeal in reliance on the following grounds:
• Ground 1 – the judge reached irrational and inadequately reasoned conclusions on whether the family would encounter very significant obstacles to integration on return to Pakistan.
• Ground 2 – the judge did not conduct a lawfully complete balancing exercise in assessing the overall proportionality of the refusal decisions.
5. In a decision dated 12 March 2026, a judge of the First-tier Tribunal granted permission for both grounds to be argued.
6. At the error of law hearing, I heard helpful oral submissions from both parties. I address any submissions of significance in the discussion section below.
Discussion
7. In MN (Vietnam) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWCA Civ 485, the Court of Appeal set out the principles which should guide the analysis of whether judicial reasons are lawfully adequate. Between [34] and [36], Dove LJ drew together the leading authorities:
[34] […] The question which then arises is by what standard those reasons are to be judged in order to determine whether or not they are legally adequate. Whilst given in a different public law context, the observations of Lord Brown of Eaton under Heywood in South Bucks County Council v Porter (No 2) [2004] UKHL 33; [2004] 1 WLR 1953 at paragraph 36 provide an important statement of principle applicable in the current context:
“36. The reasons for a decision must be intelligible and they must be adequate. They must enable the reader to understand why the matter was decided as it was and what conclusions were reached on the “principal controversial issues”, disclosing how any issue of law or fact was resolved. Reasons can be briefly stated, the degree of particularity required depending entirely on the nature of the issues falling for decision. The reasoning must not give rise to a substantial doubt as to whether the decision-maker erred in law, for example by misunderstanding some relevant policy or some other important matter or by failing to reach a rational decision on relevant grounds. But such adverse inference will not readily be drawn. The reasons need refer only to the main issues in dispute, not to every material consideration…Decision letters must be read in a straightforward manner, recognising that they are addressed to parties well aware of the issues involved and the arguments advanced. A reasons challenge will only succeed if the party aggrieved can satisfy the court that he has genuinely been substantially prejudiced by the failure to provide an adequately reasoned decision.”
[35] Accompanying these principles, it is also necessary to observe that the decision, in this case the FtTIAC determination, must be read as a whole and in context. Part of that context is that examining the determination’s reasons should be approached and undertaken purposefully, with the object of obtaining an understanding of the decision and its basis. It should not be read or construed in a manner more appropriate to a contract or statute. It requires what Lord Bingham MR described as a “straightforward down to earth reading” of the determination which seeks to identify whether there is “room for genuine as opposed to forensic doubt” as to what has been decided and why (see Clarke Homes Limited v Secretary of State for the Environment and East Staffordshire District Council [1993] 66 P&CR 263).
[36] This approach to the standard of reasons required as a matter of law can be set in the general understanding of approaches to appeals in respect of tribunals within the Immigration and Asylum Chamber provided by Lord Hamblen at paragraph 72 of HA (Iraq) v SSHD [2022] 1 WLR 3784; [2022] UKSC 22:
“72. It is well established that judicial caution and restraint is required when considering whether to set aside a decision of a specialist fact finding tribunal. In particular:
(i) They alone are the judges of the facts. Their decisions should be respected unless it is quite clear that they have misdirected themselves in law. It is probably that in understanding and applying the law in their specialised field the tribunal will have got it right. Appellate courts should not rush to find misdirections simply because they might have reached a different conclusion on the facts or expressed themselves differently: see AH (Sudan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2008] AC 678 per Baroness Hale of Richmond at para 30.
(ii) Where a relevant point is not expressly mentioned by the tribunal, the court should be slow to infer that it has not been taken into account: see MA (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] 2 All ER 65, para 45 per Sir John Dyson JSC.
(iii) When it comes to the reasons given by the tribunal, the court should exercise judicial restraint and should not assume that the tribunal misdirected itself just because not every step in its reasoning is fully set out: see R (Jones) v First-tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber) [2013] 2 AC 48, para 25 per Lord Hope of Craighead DPSC.”
8. In addition to the above statements of principle, the Upper Tribunal’s jurisdiction to decide whether an FTT decision involved a material error of law was recently considered by the Court of Appeal in Ullah v SSHD [2024] EWCA Civ 201; [2024] 1 W.L.R. 4055. At [26], Green LJ summarised the applicable principles (we have not reproduced those principles which are reflected above in MN (Vietnam) to similar effect):  
[26] Sections 11 and 12 of the TCEA 2007 restrict the UT's jurisdiction to errors of law. It is settled that:  
[…]
(iv)  The issues for decision and the basis upon which the FTT reaches its decision on those issues may be set out directly or by inference: see UT (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1095 at [27];  
(v)  Judges sitting in the FTT are to be taken to be aware of the relevant authorities and to be seeking to apply them. There is no need for them to be referred to specifically, unless it was clear from their language that they had failed to do so: see AA (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] 4 WLR 145 at para 34;  
(vi)  It is of the nature of assessment that different tribunals, without illegality or irrationality, may reach different conclusions on the same case. The mere fact that one tribunal has reached what might appear to be an unusually generous view of the facts does not mean that it has made an error of law: see R (MM (Lebanon)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] 1 WLR 771 at para 107.  
9. In DPP Law Ltd v Paul Greenberg [2021] EWCA Civ 672, the Court of Appeal, in the context of employment proceedings, considered adequacy of reasoning as an error of law. Popplewell LJ, stressed, at [57], the need to consider judicial reasons fairly and as whole without being hypercritical. Appellate restraint is required to read reasons benevolently. “Simple, clear and concise” reasoning was to be encouraged to enable to parties to broadly understand why they had won or lost. Further, it should not be assumed that an element of the evidence which was not expressly discussed was left out of account. While these observations were made in the context of employment proceedings, they are of relevance in the immigration and asylum sphere because this is also a jurisdiction in which decisions are made by expert tribunals attenuated by the need to give appeals anxious scrutiny.
10. With the above principles in mind, I turn my attention to the articulated grounds of appeal.
11. A central plank of the appellants’ argument in support of ground 1 was that paragraph [15] of the judge’s reasoning tended to reveal that she had taken into account factors identified at the beginning of the paragraph which could have no lawful bearing on the conclusion reached as to the existence of very significant obstacles to integration which came at the end of the paragraph. There was some superficial attraction to this argument as it was difficult to see why precarious status in the UK might inform how the family might integrate on return to Pakistan. The same point was made about the fact that none of the children qualified under s.117B of the 2002 Act. However, I must be cautious not to read the decision with a forensic microscope and reach a strained conclusion that the judge has placed factors into the wrong overall categories of analysis simply because the judicial rationale might have been more tightly structured. The judge’s reasoning might have benefitted from greater clarity if paragraph 15 was separated into two because the observations at the end of this paragraph about the medical treatment which would be available to the lead appellant in Pakistan, the language spoken by the appellants, the family connections remaining in Pakistan, the cost of education in Pakistan and the economic prospects on return were all plainly relevant to whether very significant obstacles to integration existed. Equally, the observation made at [13] about the fact that the adult appellants, and their children at that time, were previously able to reintegrate on return to Pakistan from the UK in 2014 was a relevant factor touching on whether they would be able to do so again. Similarly, further factors going to this issue were articulated at [16] despite appearing to have already reached a conclusion on the point at the end of the previous paragraph. However, reading the decision purposefully and fairly, the judge has clearly addressed her mind to the relevant matters in concluding that the appellants had not discharged their burden to establish very significant obstacles to integration.
12. Ground 2 involves a similar complaint that the judge has not taken into account all relevant factors before concluding that the refusal decisions were not disproportionate interferences with the family’s Article 8 human rights. I am not persuaded that it is appropriate to look at paragraph [17] in isolation stripped of its context. It was suggested that the balancing exercise conducted at [17] was overly narrow and confined to the matters set out in that part of the judge’s analysis. Returning to paragraph [15], it can be seen that the judge has attached some weight to the eldest child’s integration and private life established in the UK. This was not expressly referred to at [16], but it would be difficult to conclude that the judge had forgotten about what she observed in the preceding paragraphs. The same point falls to be made about the lead appellant’s medical condition. The point was not canvassed in paragraph [17], but it was plainly considered in paragraph [15].
13. I agree that the judge’s analysis might have been more tightly structured, but I am not persuaded that her conclusions on either the existence of very significant obstacles to integration or the overall balancing exercise were rendered unlawful as a result. All of the relevant factors were considered and the appellants cannot be in any sensible doubt as to why the judge found against them. She has performed her lawful duty in explaining why she decided the case as she did. At the error of law hearing, it was argued on the appellants’ behalf that the judge was obliged to expressly consider particular paragraphs of the lead appellant’s witness statement. Again, I must disagree. The judge was required to consider the evidence and come to lawful conclusions while providing a lawfully adequate explanation as to why she came to those conclusions. The legal principles cited above make it abundantly clear that a judge is not required in law to exhaustively set out every relevant strand of evidence and comment on each. It plainly weighed heavily on the judge that she found the adult appellants to have been motivated by economic factors which fell far short of very significant obstacles to integration or unjustifiably harsh consequences for any of the family members. The appellants may disagree with these findings of fact by referring to particular parts of their factual accounts, but this does not come close to reaching the threshold of an error of law founded on defects of reasoning.
14. The decision could have been better expressed but is not tainted by errors of law.
Notice of Decision
The judge’s decision did not involve errors of law. The appeal against the decision is dismissed.

P Lodato

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

19 May 2026