Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-001443
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/55493/2022

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 14 September 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BARTLETT

Between

T.M.
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Ahmad, instructed by Hanson Law Ltd
For the Respondent: Mr Mullen, Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 8 September 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 made an application for protection that was rejected by the respondent. The appellant appealed that refusal to the First-tier Tribunal who refuse the appellant’s appeal in a decision promulgated on 17 January 2026 (the “Determination”).
2. Judge Michaels of the First-tier Tribunal granted permission to appeal on 24 March 2026 on grounds three, four, five and six of the Grounds of appeal only. Grounds one and two were said to amount to no more than a disagreement with the judge’s factual findings and conclusions drawn rather than identifying any arguable legal error.
3. The grounds of appeal are (adopting the numbers used in the grounds of appeal):
a. Ground three - wrongly assessing the documentary evidence, including misinterpreting the appellant’s account of seized documents and failing to apply the relevant country guidance;
b. Ground four - Misapplying section 8 AITCA 2004 by disregarding leading authorities and the appellant’s explanation that he was under the control of an agent while travelling;
c. Ground five - inadequately evaluating the sur place claim;
d. Ground six - conducting a legally flawed assessment of risk on return.
Submissions
4. Mr Ahmad relied on a written skeleton argument and made oral submissions. Mr Mullen relied on the respondent’s rule 24 response and made oral submissions.
Decision
Ground three - wrongly assessing the documentary evidence, including misinterpreting the appellant’s account of seized documents and failing to apply the relevant country guidance
5. The appellant’s written submissions on this ground are that the appellant consistently explained that the police raided the family home and seized documents and that the judge was wrong to focus on the word “probably” used by the appellant as undermining the account. It was also submitted that there was no consideration of SMO & KSP (Civil status documentation; article 15) Iraq CG [2022] UKUT 00110 (IAC) (“SMO2”) and that was an automatic error of law as the judge failed to consider a country guidance case.
6. I said to Mr Ahmad that it is not correct that not referring to case law amounts to an error of law and I asked him to identify what parts of SMO2 it was said that the judge failed to apply. I asked this question several times because Mr Ahmed repeatedly referred to the appellant’s evidence that the authorities had probably taken his documents and that the appellant was not in contact with his family. This submission relates to the findings of fact of the judge and so I asked Mr Ahmad again to identify what parts of SMO2 it was said the judge did not apply. Mr Ahmad then identified that the judge did not give any consideration to whether the appellant could re-document himself and if the appellant does not have access to documents how he could get to a CSID office and get through checkpoints
7. The respondent’s position is though the judge did not expressly cite SMO2, she applied its underlying principles. It was further submitted that the grounds of appeal did not engage with the judge’s reasoned criticism at paragraph 26 and 27 that it was not credible for the appellant be without identity documents given his occupation and that this finding was entirely consistent with the expert evidence summarised in Annex A of SMO2.
8. This ground of appeal included two: concepts one is that the judge erred in the assessment of the appellant’s evidence about his documents and the second is that the judge did not apply the principles in SMO2.
9. The submissions relating to the judge’s assessment of the appellant’s evidence about his documents are nothing more than a disagreement with the judge’s assessment of the evidence and findings. At paragraph 25 to 27 the judge addresses the evidence about the ID documents at some length: she refers to the appellant’s own evidence in his screening interview and substantive asylum interview, correctly identifying what he said. It was open to the judge to find that there were discrepancies in that evidence. Further paragraph 26 and 27 assess his claims about the identity documents in light of his evidence that he was working at a warehouse and the judge did not err in rejecting the credibility of his claim that the identity documents were in a hiding place at home in the context of the wider evidence.
10. It cannot be argued that not citing a case, even a country guidance case, is an error of law. Paragraph 10 of the June 2024 Practice Direction on Reasons for Decisions from the Senior President of Tribunals sets out “As an expert tribunal, the First-tier Tribunal will generally be taken to be aware of the relevant authorities within the jurisdiction being exercised, and to be applying those cases without the need to refer to them specifically, unless it is clear from the language of the decision that they have failed to do so. The upper Tribunal will not readily assume that a tribunal has misdirected itself merely because every step in its reasoning is not fully set out in its decision. Thus, a challenge based on the adequacy of reason should only succeed when the appellate body cannot understand the tribunal’s thought process in making material findings”
11. SMO2 sets out many principles, Mr Ahmad did not identify any paragraph of the headnote or otherwise that the Judge failed to apply despite my questions. Paragraph 7 of the headnote sets out “Return of former residents of the Iraqi Kurdish Region (IKR) will be to the IKR and all other Iraqis will be to Baghdad. The Iraqi authorities will allow an Iraqi national (P) in the United Kingdom to enter Iraq only if P is in possession of a current or expired Iraqi passport relating to P, or a Laissez Passer.”. I note somewhat surprisingly that it was submitted by Mr Ahmad to the First-tier Tribunal that the appellant’s return would be to Baghdad and that this was disputed by the Home Office Presenting Officer at the tribunal who said he would be returned to the IKR. The judge considered both situations and found that “the appellant would have his ID with him so he would be able to travel either from Baghdad to the IKR or within the IKR” It was open to the judge to find as she did that the appellant was in contact with his family [40] and [40] that the appellant’s brother “would be able to send the appellant’s ID documents to him in the United Kingdom” and so ultimately that the appellant would have the necessary ID documents. I find that Mr Ahmad submission has no merit. He has repeatedly failed to identify what in SMO2 the judge has misapplied or failed to apply and instead has made a submission that has no merit that the judge’s findings of facts were flawed.
12. This ground is dismissed as it has no merit.
Ground four - Misapplying section 8 AITCA 2004 by disregarding leading authorities and the appellant’s explanation that he was under the control of an agent while travelling
13. This ground can be dealt with briefly as it has no merit. At paragraph 28 the judge addresses section 8 of the 2004 Act and finds “that his failure to claim asylum in either Italy or France is behaviour which damages his credibility.” This is a finding that was open to the judge on the evidence before her. In any event, it is clear that any error in this respect could not be a material error as Mr Ahmed quite sensibly accepted this was a minor part of the Determination. Even if he had not said this I would have found such, taking the alleged error at its highest that it was not material.

Ground five - inadequately evaluating the surplus claim
14. The judge considers the sur place claim at [30] to [34]. At [30] the judge sets out the appellant’s evidence that “he had ‘nothing to do with politics’” and that she had rejected his claim about being threatened by high-ranking politicians in the IKR.
15. At [31] the judge considers the letter provided by the chairman of the Dakok Support Centre. Mr Ahmad took issue with various words in this paragraph such as “the letter is written in general terms “. Mr Ahmad submitted this cannot be correct as the letter lists out the dates of the demonstrations but that is recognised by the judge in paragraph [31]. The judge’s finding that the letter “just states that [the appellant] ‘participated’” was unarguably open to her given that the letter says he participated in demonstrations. There is no error disclosed paragraph 31.
16. At [32] the judge addresses the photographs and makes reference to the appellant wearing a hi viz jacket. Mr Ahmad submissions required the hi viz jacket to carry some heavy lifting. He submitted that by reason of the appellant wearing a hi viz jacket the appellant’s role in the demonstrations was more than participatory and must be interpreted as the appellant having a significant role in the demonstrations. I find that this submission has no merit whatsoever. Millions of people in the United Kingdom have hi viz jackets, an individual can wear one wherever one chooses. It was open to the judge to conclude that the wearing of the hi viz jacket had no import. There is no error of law.
17. At [33] judge considers the Facebook account. The judge identifies that the full download was not provided, many parts of it were not translated, the activity log did not show his posts, and that his name appears differently on his Facebook account. At [34] the judge further considers the Facebook account and finds that the photos of him at demonstrations do not show that he is more than a participant. The judge adopted a sound approach to assessing the evidence making conclusions that were open to her.
18. I recognise that Mr Ahmad submission said that all the three elements of the appellant’s evidence namely the letter, the participation in demonstrations in the Facebook account needed to be considered cumulatively to assess his risk on return. The judge has assessed all of the evidence in the round in her assessment that he is not at risk on account of his sur place activities at [36].
19. Mr Ahmad went on to make a submission that the authorities in the IKR monitored protests in the United Kingdom and therefore the appellant’s attendance at the demonstrations when combined with the other sur place evidence put him at risk on return. The difficulty with this is Mr Ahmad has not been able to identify that the judge failed to take into account evidence that could establish the appellant was so at risk. I have found that there was no error in the judge’s assessment that the appellant was merely a participant in demonstrations in the United Kingdom, that the appellant did not participate in any demonstrations in the IKR, that his sur place activity was merely to bolster his asylum claim.
20. At [39] the judge sets out “I accept that the appellant does not need direct evidence that he has been covertly monitored but he has provided no evidence that the authorities monitor demonstrations such as those he has taken part in and no evidence that in general they monitor Facebook activities”. I asked Mr Ahmad to refer me to where there was such evidence submitted to the judge that the authorities of the IKR monitor sur place activities. He directed me to 3 paragraphs of the skeleton argument relied on in the First-tier tribunal, those are paragraph 32, 33 and 34. Paragraph 32 refers to a skyline report. Mr Ahmad was not able to identify in that that it referred to the Kurdish authorities rather than the “supreme judicial Council in Iraq”. Paragraph 33 refers to a US State Department 2022 report and Mr Ahmad was unable to identify that that report referred to the government of the IKR rather than of Iraq (the latter is what it states). Paragraph 34 refers to activities in the Kurdistan region and that “technicians have been able to access old Facebook accounts belonging to customers monitor how many times they were logged in and out, how many devices were logged in and the location of users devises”. Even taking out at its highest it does little to assist Mr Ahmad submissions. There is no evidence that the IKR monitors demonstrations in the United Kingdom. Further, the judge clearly explained why the appellant was no more than a participant and so not at risk on return. After finding that his sur place activities were opportunistic, it was open to the judge to conclude he would not pursue political activities on return and so not be at risk.
21. I find that there is no merit to this ground and there is no error of law.
Ground six - conducting a legally flawed assessment of risk on return
22. Mr Ahmad submitted that the judge not correctly applied the CPIN as the judge had only referred to section 3.1.1. I reminded Mr Ahmad that if he said the judge had erroneously overlooked or misapplied sections of the CPIN he would need to identify what they were. He referred to section 3.1.3 which sets out the following:
“3.1.3 However, available evidence does indicate that the following groups of people may be at higher risk of arrest, detention, assault, excessive use of force and extrajudicial killing by the KRG authorities:
• Individuals with higher profiles: those who have a prominent public presence, who are actively involved in or have previous history of organising or participating in protests and demonstrations.
• Journalist: those who are seen to be criticising government officials or engaging in critical reporting on controversial political or other sensitive issues, for example protests and demonstrations, corruption, abuse of authority etc.
23. In light of my finding that the judge did not make an error that the appellant did not have a high profile, Mr Ahmad’s submission can have no merit as this section did not apply to the appellant. A submission that any other parts of the CPIN were erroneously overlooked has no merit, the CPIN simply does not assist him.
24. This ground has no merit and there is no arguable error of law.
Notice of Decision
There are no errors of law in the First-tier Tribunal’s determination dated 17 January 2026. The appeal is dismissed.

Judge Bartlett
Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

11September 2026