Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-002426
First-tier Tribunal No: HU/54779/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 20th of October 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE NEVILLE

Between

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Appellant
and

JK
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms S Mackenzie, Senior Presenting Officer
For the Respondent: Mr M Saleem, counsel instructed by Malik & Malik Solicitors

Heard at Field House on 7 August 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. JK is a citizen of Albania, born in 1996. He entered the United Kingdom unlawfully in September 2014. His subsequent applications for an EEA residence card were refused. Following convictions for drugs offences, including sentences of 14 months’ imprisonment in 2018 and 20 months’ imprisonment in 2021, a deportation order was made on 13 March 2019. On 2 August 2021 he made a protection claim, later supplemented by further submissions.
2. By a decision dated 25 March 2025, the Secretary of State refused JK’s protection and human rights claims and declined to revoke the deportation order. The factual core of JK’s account was accepted, including that he had been trafficked to the United Kingdom and forced to work to repay a debt, but the Secretary of State concluded that he would have sufficient protection in Albania and could internally relocate.
3. The First-tier Tribunal (“FtT”) allowed JK’s appeal. It found that he was not a refugee, but that he remained at real risk of serious harm from his traffickers, without sufficient protection or a viable internal relocation alternative, and was therefore entitled to humanitarian protection and protection under Article 3 ECHR.
4. The Secretary of State appealed to the Upper Tribunal on the basis that the FtT:
a. “failed to carry out any analysis of the effectiveness of the assistance available to the appellant as a recognised Victim of Trafficking from the Albanian state, NGOs, and civil society organisations that provide support and protection male victims of trafficking”;
b. “made no assessment of the support structures available to the appellant on return, including accommodation options and the assistance offered by NGOs with access to shelters and reintegration programmes. These mechanisms are capable of providing the appellant with a secure living environment in Albania, mitigating any alleged risk”; and that
c. “also failed to consider that the appellant is at no greater risk in Albania from the organised crime group than he is in the UK, given their alleged reach.”
5. Those assertions were accompanied by references to the relevant underlying country evidence said to have been neglected by the FtT.
General principles
6. JK’s position on return to Albania is a matter of fact. The caution that applies to appellate interference in findings of fact has been repeatedly emphasised in the authorities, for example in Volpi v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464 at [2]:
i) An appeal court should not interfere with the trial judge's conclusions on primary facts unless it is satisfied that he was plainly wrong.
ii) The adverb "plainly" does not refer to the degree of confidence felt by the appeal court that it would not have reached the same conclusion as the trial judge. It does not matter, with whatever degree of certainty, that the appeal court considers that it would have reached a different conclusion. What matters is whether the decision under appeal is one that no reasonable judge could have reached.
iii) An appeal court is bound, unless there is compelling reason to the contrary, to assume that the trial judge has taken the whole of the evidence into his consideration. The mere fact that a judge does not mention a specific piece of evidence does not mean that he overlooked it.
iv) The validity of the findings of fact made by a trial judge is not aptly tested by considering whether the judgment presents a balanced account of the evidence. The trial judge must of course consider all the material evidence (although it need not all be discussed in his judgment). The weight which he gives to it is however pre-eminently a matter for him.
v) An appeal court can therefore set aside a judgment on the basis that the judge failed to give the evidence a balanced consideration only if the judge's conclusion was rationally insupportable.
vi) Reasons for judgment will always be capable of having been better expressed. An appeal court should not subject a judgment to narrow textual analysis. Nor should it be picked over or construed as though it was a piece of legislation or a contract.
7. In this appeal, similar principles are provided by the Senior President’s Practice Direction: Reasons for decisions, including the following:
6. 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. The reasons provided for any decision should be proportionate, not only to the resources of the Tribunal, but to the significance and complexity of the issues that have to be decided. Reasons need refer only to the main issues and evidence in dispute, and explain how those issues essential to the Tribunal’s conclusion have been resolved.
[…]
8. 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.
9. 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 reasons should only succeed when the appellate body cannot understand the Tribunal’s thought process in making material findings.
Consideration
Assistance and support on return
8. These grounds are phrased in absolute terms: the FtT failed to conduct the necessary assessment at all. I take the citation of parts of the CPIN as meant to illustrate the potential for the Secretary of State’s case on that assessment to have prevailed had the FtT not erred as claimed.
9. It is convenient to start with the Secretary of State’s decision. At paragraphs 25, 26 and 31 the Secretary of State referred to specific paragraphs within three relevant CPINs, including the CPIN later cited in the grounds of appeal to the Upper Tribunal, as well as the country guidance given in TD and AD (Trafficked women) CG [2016] UKUT 92 (IAC), in support of reasoned conclusions as to the assistance and support available to JK on return.
10. Likewise, in preparing for the appeal and in accordance with the FtT’s Practice Direction, JK’s solicitors had provided a seven page country information schedule setting out which parts of the relevant CPINs were relied upon, and an Appeal Skeleton Argument that made further detailed reference to country information and guidance by direct reference to the assistance and protection available in Albania and to the ability of a criminal gang to locate those in whom it has interest. These issues were also the subject of specific evidence in JK’s witness statement.
11. I agree with Mr Saleem that the issue of the support and accommodation available to victims of trafficking in Albania was therefore placed squarely before the FtT, and so too was the evidence upon which the parties relied in support of their respective cases on that issue. In line with the principles set out above, it should be assumed that the FtT both conducted the required task and that it did so by reference to the evidence before it. Such an assumption is not, however, necessary given what is expressly stated in the decision:
a. At [23], [48], [56], [57] and elsewhere, findings are made in relation to the criminal gang’s ability to locate JK in Albania. They can only arise from familiarity with the parties’ written documents cited above.
b. At [47], the FtT referred to the Appeal Skeleton Argument’s reliance on the CPIN concerning support to victims of trafficking, before stating:
“But the CPIN does refer to a significant proportionate of men who are victims of trafficking accessing mental health and psychological care and identified at community level and provided with emergency services.”
c. At [58], the FtT correctly directed itself that it must consider sufficiency of protection before embarking on a consideration of the parties’ cases.
d. At [61], the FtT observed that:
“The CPINs in relation to trafficking and actors of protection refers to corruption and that Albanian crime groups remain powerful within Europe, and have ties to the police, judicial officials, and other people in high positions. The Freedom House report notes that notwithstanding the Government’s claimed reforms, law enforcement is regularly influenced by Organised Crime Groups, and corruption and impunity remains as significant problem.”
e. At [62], the FtT likewise paraphrased a CPIN in relation to the issue of internal relocation, and further referenced TD and AD.
12. The grounds set out at paragraphs 4(a) and (b) above are therefore unsustainable. The FtT directly addressed support services and support structures for victims of trafficking at [47], and nothing in its decision suggests that it did not consider the paragraphs of the CPIN that tended in the other direction. Ms Mackenzie referred me to further paragraphs of the CPIN that support the Secretary of State’s case on the issue of support and accommodation in Albania, but I agree with Mr Saleem that he could likewise point to several paragraphs that support JK’s case and undermine that of the Secretary of State. I reject that the FtT was under a duty to exhaustively rehearse all these potentially competing paragraphs; nor was it required to afford equal prominence to those that assisted each party: see Volpi at [2(iv)]. Instead, it was required to set out its conclusions and sufficient reasoning for its thought process to be understood.
13. The parties’ cases referred to three separate CPINs, each of which provides a lengthy recitation of country evidence relevant to the issues that arise in a protection appeal. The application of that evidence to a particular set of facts will vary from case to case, and in the FtT the task is a familiar one. While the reasoning is certainly brief in the present decision, it is sufficient to contradict the grounds’ assertion that the FtT did not even begin to address the necessary factual issues.
Reach of the Albanian gang
14. This final assertion, set out at para 4(c) above, is difficult to understand. I was not referred to where any substantiated case had been presented to the FtT that an individual would, in general or specifically on these facts, be just as vulnerable to Albanian criminal gang in the UK as they would be on return to Albania. In any event, the FtT conducted a detailed examination of JK’s account and made findings as the actions and abilities of the gang that have not been subjected to any criticism. Ms Mackenzie suggested that there was an inconsistency between the reasoning on whether JK forms part of a particular social group for the purposes of the Refugee Convention and in relation to his risk on return. I suspect that the former contains a mistaken double negative, but even if there is an inconsistency this does not engage any of the pleaded grounds and is immaterial to the final outcome.
Conclusion
15. The FtT’s decision contains no error of law and the appeal must be dismissed. I note that after the FtT promulgated its decision, the Upper Tribunal handed down country guidance on the present issues in LR (Male VOTs) Albania CG [2026] UKUT 315 (IAC). This cannot affect the lawfulness of the FtT’s decision when it was made.
16. I renew the anonymity order made by the FtT. This being a protection appeal, and given the potential risk to JK if he is identified, derogation from the principle of open justice is justified.
Notice of Decision

(i) The Secretary of State’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal is dismissed.
(ii) The decision of the First-tier Tribunal to allow JK’s appeal stands.

J Neville
Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

19 October 2026