Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2026-001730

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/57066/2024
LP/12179/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

22nd July 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BARTLETT

Between

MKA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms Reville, of Counsel
For the Respondent: Ms Isherwood, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 1 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. The appellant is a national of Iran. He made an application for asylum on 19 October 2019. The respondent refused his applications on 5 March 2024. The appellant appealed that decision to the First-tier Tribunal. A hearing took place on 10 December 2025 and a decision was promulgated on 9 January 2026 refusing the case on all grounds.
2. The appellant’s appealed the First-tier Tribunal’s decision and permission was granted on all four grounds.
3. The appellant’s case is that he was a 16-year-old Kurd and his family had no political involvement. However, his father was detained and visited by the authorities, after complaining about one of the appellant’s sisters being sexually assaulted. His two sisters joined the Peshmerga, one of whom who was murdered. Due to the authorities seeking him, the appellant left Iran. In the United Kingdom he engaged in Facebook posts critical of the regime and attended a number of demonstrations critical of the regime. The judge found that the appellant’s account of events in Iran was not credible and rejected his account being of interest or at risk from the Iranian authorities in its entirety. In relation to the sur place activities, the judge found that they were wholly opportunistic and that they were low-level.
4. The appellant’s grounds of appeal are as follows:
a. ground one – failure to consider country guidance. Ms Reville submitted this ground had two parts. The first was failures in relation to the rejection of the appellant’s account of events in Iran and the second was in relation to his sur place activity;
b. ground 2 - irrational or inadequately reasoned findings on events in Iran due to failing to have regard country evidence;
c. ground three -the judge applied too high a standard of proof. During submission Ms Reville refined this ground and restated it as having two parts. One part related to procedural unfairness in that the finding that it was not accepted that the appellant’s mother had £3000 in savings to pay for his journey to the United Kingdom had not been raised with him and it was unfair to rely on this and contrary to Abdi & Ors v Entry Clearance Officer [2023] EWCA Civ 1455. The other issue that was not put to the appellant at the hearing but that the judge held against him was a delay in leaving Iran. Again, this was said to be procedurally unfair.
Submissions
5. I heard submissions from the representatives for the appellant and the respondent which are recorded in the record of proceedings. I mean no disrespect to the representatives by not setting out those in full here.
Decision
Procedural Issues
6. The appellant’s representatives had not uploaded the bundle prior to the hearing which was a breach of directions. Ms Reville stated that she had been told by instructing solicitors that it was uploaded. The Home Office also said that they had not received the bundle. Ms Reville said that the consolidated bundle was 990 pages which seemed very long for this hearing. Ms Isherwood said that she had been able to prepare the case from the documents on CCD which is the electronic system in the First-tier Tribunal. I was also able to access the documents from that system. I confirmed with Ms Reville which documents she was referring to and it was accepted that we had them all. Ms Reville also did not have the respondent’s rule 24 response but she accepted that it had been served. It is very disappointing that the appellant’s representatives have not complied with basic procedural matters. They are reminded that uploading a bundle to CE file does not serve the bundle on the Home Office and this should be well known by now.
Ground one - failure to consider country guidance
7. The first part of ground one was that the judge failed to have due regard to the guidance set out in HB (Kurds) Iran (illegal exit: failed asylum seeker) CG [2018] UKUT 430 (IAC) and in particular its identification at paragraph 10 of the headnote of the hair trigger approach adopted by the Iranian authorities towards Kurds.
8. The judge sets out a detailed and comprehensive assessment of the appellant’s account of events in Iran and its consistency with background material. A key part of the appellant’s account was that his sisters became Peshmerga within a matter of weeks. The judge rejected that at paragraphs 21 to 25 with detailed references to several objective evidence sources. At paragraph 26 the judge sets out why the background material does not support the appellant’s account of the authorities pursuing his father again after initial detention and then pursuing the appellant. At paragraph 15 the judge sets out difficulties with the appellant’s account that his sister would be suspected of gathering information for the KDPI given that she only worked on the family farm and that it was not credible that the sisters would have joined the KDPI for the reasons given. At paragraphs 16 and 18 the judge gives reasons for rejecting the appellant’s account about the authorities repeatedly visiting his family home. At paragraph 28 the judge refers to having considered all the evidence, the appellant’s age and standard of proof and rejects the appellant’s account. I find that this part of ground one is merely an attempt to reargue the case. The decision is thorough and comprehensive. The judge is clearly aware of HB (Kurds) as it is cited in the judgement, he assessed the account by reference to objective evidence and applied the correct burden of proof.
9. The second part of ground one relates to the assessment of the sur place activities. This submission was that the judge failed to consider what would happen at the pinch point of removal and the judge failed to consider if pro-Kurdish activity if revealed would put him at risk.
10. The judge rejected the appellant’s account of events in Iran in its entirety. As a result neither the appellant nor his family were found by the judge to have a “political profile” para 33.
11. The judge also found that the appellant’s sur place activities were “opportunistic and designed to bolster his claim for asylum.” Para 33. At para 35 the judge set out that “his limited activity of attending a small number of demonstrations is not sufficient to bring him to the adverse attention of the authorities on return”. The judge also found that it would not be unreasonable for the appellant to delete his Facebook account before return.
12. At paragraph 36 the judge correctly applied BA (Demonstrators in Britain - risk on return) Iran CG [2011] UKUT. At paragraph 44 the judge concluded taking into account XX (PJAK – sur place activities – Facebook) Iran CG [2022] UKUT 23 (IAC) that he was of no previous adverse interest and did not face a real risk of persecution on return as a result of illegal exit or being a failed asylum seeker.
13. I was referred to the case of S v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ 1482. I consider that this case falls squarely within the guidance set out in S v SSHD. In that case the judge found that the appellant had not already come to the attention of the authorities either because of the Facebook posts or attendance at demonstrations, that the appellant and his family do not have any political profile in Iran, that his anti regime activity in the United Kingdom was purely opportunistic to bolster his asylum claim and therefore he did not have a genuine political belief in opposing the regime. Following S v SSHD, it is established that the appellant will not have to prove his loyalty the to the regime rather he would not be required to volunteer information about his activities in the United Kingdom. The judge does not quite say those words exactly in his decision however it is clear that that is his conclusion from his decision relating to the sur place activities, their opportunistic nature, that he can delete the Facebook account, that he has had no political activity in Iran or genuinely held political beliefs.
14. I find that the judge addresses all matters relating to re-entry into Iran as required and the inevitable conclusion is that the appellant would not have to volunteer information about his activities in the United Kingdom such that he would not be at any risk as the judge found. I find that there is no error of law.
Ground two - failing to have regard to background material
15. This ground submits that the judge failed to have regard to background material. Ms Reville referred to particular paragraphs from the current CPIN and para 31 of HB (Kurds).
16. This ground has no merit.
17. I refer to paragraph 6 of the June 2024 Practice Direction from the Senior President of Tribunals which sets out “Providing adequate reasons does not usually require the First-tier Tribunal to identify all of the evidence relied upon in reaching its findings of fact, to elaborate at length its conclusions on any issue of law, or to express every step of its reasoning.”
18. Paragraph 8 goes to state “Judges and members in the First-tier Tribunal should expect that the Upper Tribunal will approach its own decisions on appeal in accordance with the well settled principle that appellate tribunals exercise appropriate restraint when considering a challenge to a decision based on the adequacy of reasons. As the Court of Appeal has emphasised, a realistic and reasonably benevolent approach will be taken such that decisions under appeal will be read fairly and not hypercritically.”
19. The judge refers to numerous pieces of background material. He assesses the evidence carefully against the background evidence. As is made clear by the Practice Direction from The Senior President of Tribunals, judges are not required and it is not appropriate to require them to identify all the evidence, including all of the background material that they have considered.
20. There is no error of law.
Ground three - the proportionality exercise
21. This ground had two parts. The first was that the judge applied too high a standard of proof and impermissibly made plausibility findings which he erroneously characterised as inconsistencies. I find that this part of ground three has no merits. This is nothing more than a disagreement with the judge’s decision. The judge made detailed and careful findings about the appellant’s account and assessed it in relation to objective evidence.
22. The second part of this ground was that the judge had failed to ensure that there was procedural fairness by relying on two matters which the appellant could not anticipate would be used against him. The first was that the judge rejected the account he gave in the interview record of his mother obtaining the £3000 from savings and the second was delay in leaving Iran.
23. Both parties relied on Abdi & Ors v Entry Clearance Officer [2023] EWCA Civ 1455.
24. HA v Secretary of State for the Home Department (No 2) [2010] SC 457 [2010] CSIH 28 sets out general points about procedural fairness in the context of immigration cases, this was cited in para 29 of Abdi:
“As an expert body, the tribunal is entitled to reject evidence notwithstanding that the evidence has not been challenged before it. Fairness may, however, require it to disclose its concerns about the evidence so as to afford the parties an opportunity to address them (see [8]). There is, on the other hand no general obligation on the tribunal to give notice to the parties during the hearing of all the matters on which it may relay in reaching its decision (see [10]). Where an applicant can generally be expected to be aware that the tribunal will have to assess their credibility, there will generally be no unfairness in a tribunal proceeding without drawing attention to a point which the applicant could reasonably expect to be plainly relevant to that assessment (at [11]-[12]).”
25. It was the appellant’s evidence given in his asylum interview that his mother had used £3000 from savings to pay for his exit from Iran. It was his evidence. It was part of the case. The judge committed no error by making reference to this in his decision. This is not a matter of which the appellant was unaware. There is no procedural unfairness. Further, I consider that reading the decision indicates that this was an extremely minor point that the judge was dealing with for completeness. It has little materiality to the judge’s decision and I consider that even if there were an error, it would not be material.
26. In relation to the second ground about delay in leaving Iran. Again, this is a matter that was clearly in evidence as the appellant made statements about it in his asylum interview. The appellant, as per HA v SSHD no. 2, could reasonably expect this to be relevant to the assessment of the credibility of his claim. The judge refers to the appellant not leaving Iran sooner at paragraph 25 of the decision. The judge’s findings relate to the claim that he and his family were at risk because a member of the family had a problem with the authorities. It was open to the judge to make the finding that he did. Again, I consider that this is a minor point not going to the core of the decision and, even if there was an error, it would not be material.
27. There is no error of law.

Notice of Decision
The Decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 9 January 2026 did not contain a material error of law. The appeal is dismissed.

Judge Bartlett

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

9 July 2026