Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-001664
First-tier Tribunal No: HU/60240/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 17th of September 2026,

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LAWRENCE

Between

PIR SHAHID JAVED
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: N Ahmed, Barrister
For the Respondent: N Wain, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 14 September 2026

DECISION AND REASONS

Introduction
1. The Appellant appeals against a decision by Judge Suffield-Thompson of the First-tier Tribunal (“the FtT Judge”), dated 29 December 2025, to dismiss an appeal against a decision by the Secretary of State for the Home Department (“SSHD”), dated 8 August 2024, to refuse a human rights claim made in an application for leave to remain in the United Kingdom (“UK”).
Anonymity
2. I make no order for anonymity because there is no feature of the case that requires such an order to be made.
Background
3. The Appellant is a national of Pakistan who is presently 64 years’ old. The human rights claim that was refused by the Respondent in the 8 August 2024 decision was made on 18 July 2023 and was considered by the Respondent as an application for leave to remain on the basis of the Appellant’s private life under Appendix FM to the Immigration Rules.
4. The Appellant appealed against the 18 August 2024 decision and the appeal was heard by the FtT Judge on 29 December 2025. The FtT Judge records in their 29 December 2025 decision that the Appellant attended the hearing, which was heard remotely, and that the Appellant was represented by a Mr Hameed, but that the Respondent was not represented. Also, that the parties were agreed that issues the FtT Judge needed to resolve were:
“(a) Does the Appellant meet the Private Life Rules?
(b) Does the Appellant meet GEN 3.1 and 3.2?
(c) Is removing the Appellant a breach of his/her Article 8 rights?”
5. The FtT Judge resolved all those issues in the negative and therefore decided that the appeal must be dismissed.
The appeal to the Upper Tribunal
6. Permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal (“UT”) was granted by UT Judge Hirst in a decision dated 12 May 2026, for the following reasons:
“2. The grounds of appeal assert that the First-tier Tribunal judge acted unfairly by (i) wrongly treating the Appellant's previous unfounded asylum claim as determinative of credibility, (ii) making findings about the Appellant's family in Pakistan which were not supported by the evidence, and (iii) failing to call the Appellant's witness during the hearing. The grounds further criticise the judge’s approach to whether there were very significant obstacles to the Appellant's reintegration into Pakistan on return.
3. The grounds of appeal are arguable. In particular, it is arguable that the judge’s conclusion at §19 that the Appellant would “say whatever he needs to remain in the UK” was insufficiently reasoned by reference to the evidence before the Tribunal. Whilst the judge was not required to accept the Appellant's evidence that he had lost contact with family members in Pakistan, it is arguable that the finding that the Appellant had cousins and friends in Pakistan was not supported by the evidence before the judge. In relation to the witness, the decision states (§39) that Mr Gondal did not attend to give evidence; if that is true then there was no arguable unfairness in the judge not calling the witness to give evidence. However, the significant quantity of errors in the decision, including a lengthy passage at §23 in which the Appellant is mis-gendered, give rise to some concern. Whilst I consider that both that aspect of the first ground and the second ground (obstacles to integration) have less merit, I do not limit the grant of permission.
4. Permission to appeal is granted on all grounds.”
7. The Respondent has provided a response to the notice of appeal under Rule 24 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, dated 27 May 2026.
The hearing
8. Mr Ahmed adopted the grounds of appeal, save that after preliminary discussions he abandoned the assertion of procedural unfairness relating to the alleged failure to call a witness for the Appellant to give evidence. That followed Mr Ahmed’s acceptance that the calling of a witness is an action performed by a party to litigation or their representative, rather than a judge, and that there was no suggestion that the FtT Judge refused to hear any witness, nor that the Appellant’s representative at the hearing raised the matter at the hearing. Also, my suggestion that while a failure by such a representative to call a witness in accordance with instructions by their client might in this jurisdiction amount a procedural irregularity that could only be adequately remedied by the decision in the litigation being set aside, despite there having been no unfairness on the part of the tribunal, such an allegation of what would appear to amount to professional misconduct on the part of the representative would need to be put to the representative to give them the opportunity to respond.
9. Mr Wain adopted the Rule 24 response and both representatives made oral submissions, which I refer to in the sections below insofar as is necessary to explain my decision.
10. I declared that the decision of the FtT would be set aside with reasons and directions regarding disposal reserved to follow in writing.
Reasons
11. I am persuaded that the FtT Judge erred in law in making a perverse or inadequately reasoned finding that the Appellant was not be credible witness, and that that error materially affected the FtT Judge’s consideration of at least one of the potentially determinative issues in the appeal before them.
12. Paragraphs 18 and 19 of the FtT Judge’s decision comprise a section titled “FINDINGS”, and are as follows:
“18. The Immigration background of this vase is important. The Appellant arrived in the UK on 27 April 2010 with entry clearance as a visitor which was valid from 25 March 2009 until 25 September 2009. On 27 April 2010 the Appellant applied for leave to remain in the UK for a purpose not covered by the immigration rules. This application was refused on27 April 2011.The Appellant claimed asylum on 22 December 2015. This was refused, and certified as clearly unfounded, on 19 June 2016.On 6 July 2020 the Appellant applied for a fee waiver, this was accepted on 6 October 2020.On 15 February 2023 the Appellant applied for a fee waiver, this was accepted on 13 July 2023.
19. I state from the outset that I did not find the Appellant to be a credible witness, He has already made an unfounded asylum claim so was prepared to lie about his circumstances. I find that he will say whatever he needs to to remain in the UK.”
13. At paragraph 41, the FtT Judge states:
“41. The Appellant came here as a visitor knowing full well, he had no right to remain and yet he did so. His leave ran out in September 2009 so most of his time he has been here illegally with no valid reason as to why he could not go home. He then invented an asylum claim and has made no efforts to regularise his stay since then, until now.”
14. The only discernible reasoning for the FtT Judge’s finding that the Appellant was prepared to lie and invented an asylum claim is that he had made an asylum claim that was certified as clearly unfounded, but that reasoning is perverse because it does not follow from the fact of such certification that the asylum claim was a lie. As the Respondent appears to acknowledge in the Rule 24 response, the certification as clearly unfounded may have been because whatever was the Appellant’s claimed fear was not objectively well-founded, for example because there was sufficiency of protection or internal relocation alternatives. In any event, the FtT Judge refers to no other evidence, nor was there any assertion by the Respondent, that the asylum claim involved lying. I note that the Respondent makes no such assertion in the Rule 24 response even, which is silent on the matter despite it being inconceivable that the Respondent does not have institutional knowledge as to whether or not the certification was for such reason. But even if the asylum claim had involved an unchallenged assertion of lying, any failure by the Appellant to challenge that assertion by way of judicial review would not have amounted to an implied acceptance that the assertion was true. And, while this may not be material given my ultimate finding below, even if the Appellant had in fact lied in the asylum claim, it would not follow from that that he must be lying about the facts that were relevant to the questions the FtT was required to determine in the appeal before them ten years later, as the FtT Judge could only properly have acknowledged: see R v Lucas [1981] QB 720.
15. The question of whether the Appellant met the Private Life Rules (in the Immigration Rules) turned on whether there would be very significant obstacles to the Appellant’s reintegration into Pakistan, and the finding that he had been prepared to lie in the past and that he would say whatever he needed to to remain in the UK may not have been material to the FtT Judge’s rejection of the Appellant’s claim to have no contact with family or friends in Pakistan (para. 23) and no-one to support him there (para. 25) given what the FtT Judge says about the absence of information such as was described as sufficient as the minimum to establish such a claim by Lord Justice Underhill in Parveen v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 932 (para 19).
16. I am however persuaded that the error of law in the FtT Judge’s finding that the Appellant lied about an asylum claim was material to their consideration of whether removing the Appellant from the UK would breach his rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”), which the FtT Judge decided on the basis that Article 8 was engaged but that, having regard to the public interest in controlling immigration and protecting the economic welfare of the UK, the balance was in favour of the latter and it was reasonable to remove the Appellant from the UK. Paragraph 41 of the FtT Judge’s decision, which I have reproduced above, is within a section titled “Assessment of Proportionality” and includes the finding that the Appellant had “invented an asylum claim”, which therefore plainly was a material factor in the FtT Judge’s assessment that the impact on the Appellant’s private life consequent to his removal was outweighed by the identified public interest. I acknowledge that the FtT Judge was required to consider the normative statutory guidance that little weight should be given to a private life established by a person at a time when the person's immigration status is precarious. However, given the Appellant’s age and the length of his residence in the UK, I do not consider that the only rational outcome absent the erroneous finding that the Appellant had lied about an asylum claim was a conclusion that the public interest outweighed the Appellant’s private life in the UK.
Disposal
17. The error of law in the FtT’s decision is such that none of the findings made by the FtT can be preserved, and therefore I consider it is appropriate that the appeal to the FtT be remitted to the FtT for hearing afresh I am satisfied that the nature and extent of judicial fact finding that is necessary in order for the decision in the appeal to be re-made is such that, having regard to the overriding objective, it is appropriate to remit the case to the FtT.
Notice of Decision
The decision of the FtT involved the making of a material error on a point of law.
The decision of the FtT is set aside with no findings preserved.
The remaking of the decision in the appeal is remitted to the FtT, to be remade afresh by any judge other than Judge Suffield-Thompson.

T Lawrence
Judge Lawrence
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
DATED: 15 September 2026