Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-002499
UI-2026-002501
UI-2026-002502
UI-2026-002503

First-tier Tribunal No:
PA/56047/2024
PA/56048/2024
PA/56049/2024
PA/56050/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

28th August 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RUDDICK

Between

DA
AA
MA
NA
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)
Appellants
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: G. Mavrantonis, instructed by MA Consultants
For the Respondent: M. Parvar, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 17 August 2026

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellants are granted anonymity.

No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the appellants, likely to lead members of the public to identify the appellants. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction
1. The First-tier Tribunal (“FtT”) made an anonymity order in this appeal because it found that the importance in facilitating the UK’s discharge of its obligations under the Refugee Convention outweighed the public interest in open justice in the circumstances of this case. I have not been asked to set that order aside.
2. This appeal is brought by a man who fled to the UK with his family after suffering a severe beating in Georgia, his country of nationality. His three children are dependants on his appeal, but in my decision I will refer to the first appellant as “the appellant”, because the appeal turns on whether he would be at risk if the family returned to their country.
3. The appellant said that he was afraid that the men who attacked him would attack him again if he returned to Georgia, and that the police would not protect him. This was because he had been told that his attackers had personal connections to the police. The FtT accepted that the appellant was a credible witness and that everything he said was reasonably likely to be true. However, when it looked at the country evidence, it found that it was not reasonably likely that the police would be unwilling to protect him as he feared.
4. The appellant has appealed to the Upper Tribunal on the grounds that the FtT erred in law by accepting that he had been viciously attacked in the past but nonetheless finding that there was not a real risk that he would suffer serious harm in the future. The appellant says that the FtT made findings that were irrational, applied the wrong standard of proof and did not apply the relevant Immigration Rules.
5. For the reasons set out below, I find that the FtT did not misapply the law and that the conclusions it reached were open to it on the limited evidence before it.
Background
6. The appellant is a citizen of Georgia, born in 1981. His account of the events that led him to flee Georgia was accepted by the FtT, and there has been no challenge to that aspect of its decision. I therefore treat his account as true for the purposes of this decision.
7. From November 2021 until January 2022, the appellant worked as a foreman for a private, unregistered construction company. In that role, he hired 20-30 people to work for the company and then managed their work on a day-to-day basis.
8. At the end of January 2022, the owners of the company disappeared and the company went bankrupt. The ex-employees whom the appellant had recruited and supervised demanded that he pay them the wages they were due, which he could not afford to do. They made a number of threatening phone calls to the appellant and at the end of May 2022, they beat him so badly that he required hospitalisation.
9. The appellant did not report the attack to the police because he was worried that this would only worsen the situation. His attackers had told him that they had friends and relatives who worked for the police and some other work colleagues had told him that it would not help to go to the police because of these connections.
10. The appellant’s condition worsened and he required surgery in July 2022. He then went into hiding at a friend’s house. The threatening phone calls continued, and the appellant fled the country with his family. He arrived in the UK on 22 September 2022 and claimed asylum four days later. The ex-employees continue to harass and threaten the appellant’s family in Georgia every couple of months. The appellant said in an appeal statement written in November 2024 that they had been to his mother’s house most recently in September 2024, “threatening that they would find me and that I could not hide from them”.
11. The appellant is afraid that if he returns to Georgia, he will be targeted again. He believes that the police will not help him because they are corrupt and because his attackers have friends and relatives in the police. He does not believe that he could relocate safely within Georgia, because it is a very small country and it is easy to find people.
12. In support of his appeal, the appellant relied on the respondent’s Country Policy and Information Note (CPIN), Georgia: Political parties and affiliation, Version 3.0, published in September 2024. In his skeleton argument, it was asserted that
“Corruption impedes effectiveness of the police. Politically and socially connected individuals (such as those the Appellant fears) use their connections to shield themselves from criminal proceedings.”
13. The CPIN was specifically relied on for the following submissions:
“• The law provided criminal penalties for corruption by officials, and the government generally did not implement the law effectively. There were reports of high-level government corruption.
• NGOs assessed there were no effective mechanisms for preventing corruption in state-owned enterprises and independent regulatory bodies. NGOs continued to call for an independent anti-corruption agency outside the authority of the SSSG, alleging its officials were abusing its functions.
• The lack of independent law enforcement bodies and an independent judiciary impedes the effective application of anticorruption laws.”
14. With regard to internal relocation, the skeleton argument repeated what the appellant had said in his witness statement about Georgia being a small country where it was easy to find people and then asserted that given that the appellant “had already come to the attention of his persecutors as well the connections they have”, the appellant would be unable to relocate.
15. The appellant also raised claims based on article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”). As there has been no challenge to the FtT’s dismissal of the article 8 aspects of his appeal, however, I say no more about them.
The respondent’s case
16. In her refusal decision of 22 February 2024, the respondent accepted the material facts of the account that the appellant had given at his asylum interview. She then rejected his protection claim on the grounds that both state protection and internal relocation would be available. She based her finding about state protection on an excerpt from a CPIN, although she did not identify which one. With regard to internal relocation, she noted that there was freedom of movement within the country and found that the appellant had not demonstrated that the people he feared would have the power or influence to be able to locate him throughout the country. Internal relocation would be reasonable, given the appellant’s knowledge of Georgian language and culture, family ties, level of education and work experience.
17. The appellant appealed and provided additional evidence. This included a witness statement setting out details of the May 2022 attack that he had not given at his interview. The respondent reviewed her decision. She raised new credibility points, but as his credibility has now been accepted, I say no more about these. The respondent then submitted that effective state protection would be available to the appellant, for the following reasons:
(i) It was “lacking in credibility” – i.e. inherently implausible – that “temporary construction workers would have connections with the authorities such that could be used to wield undue influence over them.”
(ii) In her 2024 CPIN, the executive summary contained the statement,
“In general, protesters, journalists, supporters and members and leaders of opposition political parties and/or their family members are unlikely to be of interest to the authorities and subject to treatment that is sufficiently serious, by its nature or repetition, to amount to persecution or serious harm.”
It is impossible to understand why she thought this was relevant to this appellant’s claim.
(iii) The appellant’s assertion that the construction workers he feared had “state-wide influence” was “unproven”;
(iv) Georgia was a “parliamentary democracy with a functional police force” and the appellant had not “proven” that he could not relocate. She relied on the following statement from her CPIN:
“Georgia is a parliamentary democracy with the first female president, Salome Zourabichvili as head of state. Parliament is headed by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, led by the Georgian Dream party, the ruling coalition since 2012.”
Again, it is difficult to identify the relevance of this particular assertion in the CPIN to this appeal.
The FtT’s decision
18. The FtT began by setting out the issues in dispute. The appellant’s counsel had agreed at the hearing that the appellant did not claim to fear serious harm for one of the five reasons set out in the Refugee Convention (race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion), and therefore his claim under the Refugee Convention “fell to be dismissed”: [5] The respondent had conceded the appellant’s identity and nationality and that he had faced “adverse attention” from his former colleagues, but she challenged the credibility of two aspects of his evidence: the alleged assault of May 2022 and “the alleged connection between his former colleagues and the authorities”: [7]
19. The issues in dispute, as agreed by the parties, were listed at [9]:
(i) Whether the disputed aspects of the appellant’s account were reasonably likely to be true;
(ii) If so, would the appellant have access to sufficient protection; and
(iii) If so, would there be a safe and reasonable place of relocation?
20. The FtT listed the evidence before it ([10]) and confirmed that it had heard oral evidence from the appellant, one of his children and his wife ([11]), as well as submissions from the parties ([12]). It then formally dismissed the appellant’s Refugee Convention appeal at [14].
21. The FtT’s findings on the appellant’s humanitarian protection claim follow at [14]-[28]. They were divided into the subsections “Are the disputed aspects of the Appellant’s account reasonably likely to be true?”, “Sufficiency of protection”, “Internal relocation” and “Conclusion.”
22. Under the first heading, the FtT directed itself as to the principles governing credibility assessment and to the cases of KB & AH (credibility-structured approach) Pakistan [2017] UKUT 491 (IAC); SB (Sri Lanka) v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 160 at [46] and MAH (Egypt) v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 216 at [49-67]. The claim must be considered “in the context of the lower standard of proof”. Although these authorities related to refugee claims, they applied equally in claims for humanitarian protection: [14]
23. There were then two further subsections: “The attack” ([15]-[19]) and “Connections with the authorities” ([20]).
24. The FtT proceeded by announcing its conclusion that the appellant’s account of the attack on him was reasonably likely to be true, followed by the reasons for this conclusion. It noted that the appellant had not mentioned the attack at his substantive interview but also that the interview had been brief and the appellant had been abruptly cut off at the end when he was beginning to describe the attack. He had submitted medical evidence of his injuries prior to the refusal decision. His solicitors were not given a copy of the interview record before the refusal, which meant they did not know that the appellant had not given details of the attack at the interview. The account of the attack was plausible and it was corroborated by the medical records, which the respondent had not suggested were unreliable. The evidence of the appellant, his wife and his son AA had been consistent, save for a few insignificant discrepancies.
25. In accordance with section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004, the FtT then considered whether the appellant’s credibility had been damaged by his failure to claim asylum in Germany. It wrote:
“The Appellant explained that they did not stay in Germany because Georgians can freely travel to Germany without a visa, and so they were afraid to stay there. I accept this explanation, and so while I have taken into account the failure to claim asylum in Germany as damaging the Appellant’s credibility, I have given it little weight.”
The appellant had also destroyed his family’s passports after arriving in the UK, but the FtT could “conceive of this as something that an honest person would do in a misguided attempt to protect their family”.
26. At [19], the FtT concluded:
“Applying the lower standard, I find that it is reasonably likely that the Appellant was seriously attacked and hospitalised in the way he and his family described.”
27. The FtT then turned to the issue of “Connections with the authorities”. Again, it began by announcing its conclusion:
“it is reasonably likely to be true that the Appellant’s aggressors told him that they had friends and relatives in the police force, and that some of the Appellant’s colleagues at work told him that it would not help to go to the police because the aggressors had such connections.”
28. Just as it had done with regard to the attack, the FtT began with the evidence telling against the appellant: this aspect of his account was plainly inconsistent with his answers at his substantive interview, which the FtT quoted. It then considered that in a “high pressure, relatively short and abruptly terminated interview, carried out remotely” and with a remote interpreter, there might have been a misunderstanding. It continued:
“I have given significant weight to the failure to mention such connections before refusal, and the inconsistency with the interview record, and in light of those matters it is certainly possible that the Appellant is not telling the truth about this aspect of his evidence. But applying the lower standard, I find that these matters are reasonably likely to be true. His evidence on this point was relatively understated – if he was lying about it, one might have expected him to give an account including stronger support for connections between these men and the state.”: [20]
29. The next section of the determination is entitled “Sufficiency of protection”. It is at the heart of the appellant’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal. At [21], the FtT announced that it was “not satisfied that it is reasonably likely that there is not sufficient state protection” or that the appellant would not have access to it. At [22], it directed itself to the relevant law, and there is no challenge to that self-direction.
30. I set out the rest of this section in full:
“23. The only country evidence before me is the Respondent’s CPIN regarding ‘Political parties and affiliation’ (v3, September 2024). That does indicate that there may be serious capacity issues in policing and criminal justice in Georgia, which raise a real concern about whether there would be sufficient protection. The Global Organised Crime Index ('GOCI') – whose assessment likely focused on the state’s ability to tackle organised crime – stated in its 2023 assessment that “local policing agencies lack the necessary investigative and digital forensic skills and capacities, especially outside the main cities”, and “law enforcement agencies (including special units) are often understaffed and lack the ability and experience to effectively respond” (to “organized crime threats”). GOCI also noted that the judiciary is understaffed, with a backlog of cases, and another source noted that the “administration of prompt and effective justice remains a significant challenge” in Georgia. This evidence is broadly supportive of the Appellant's evidence, that the police in Georgia do not provide protection to people in general, and his perception that the police could not protect him. On the other hand, other evidence in the CPIN suggests that the prosecutor’s office conducts its operative, administrative and investigative responsibilities “in an effective and independent manner”, “police corruption lower down the hierarchy is not a major issue due to anti-corruption reforms”, and there are special units within the Georgian central criminal police department to tackle organized crime. There is nothing in the evidence before me to suggest that the Appellant’s aggressors were connected to organised crime.
24. On the evidence before me the Appellant’s aggressors are construction workers who pursued the Appellant because they had not been paid their wages. I accept that the Appellant was told that they have connections with the police, but beyond the word of the aggressors, and what the Appellant’s colleagues said, there is nothing in the evidence before me which indicates a connection such as would affect the Appellant’s ability to access protection. The aggressors themselves are not a reliable source, because they would have an obvious reason to lie, to intimidate the Appellant. The Appellant’s evidence about what his colleagues said was broad and unspecific – the information from his colleagues was apparently very general, the Appellant did not explain how his colleagues knew about these connections, and there is no reason in the evidence before me to think that the colleagues were reliable or informed. It is possible that there is a connection between the aggressors and the Georgian police, such that they would be in a position to influence or interfere with the normal course of law enforcement, and I take this possibility into account. But on the limited evidence before me, I cannot give this possibility much weight. In that context the evidence indicating corruption within criminal justice mechanisms in Georgia has relatively limited relevance. The evidence indicating susceptibility to political interference has no real relevance. […]
26. The evidence in the CPIN gives rise to a concern about the sufficiency of state protection from serious violent crime in Georgia, but it is not sufficient to justify the conclusion that it is reasonably likely that Georgia is not operating an effective legal system for the detection, prosecution and punishment of violent crime in general. For the reasons given above, on the evidence before me I am also not satisfied that the Appellant would not have access to such protection for reasons specific to him and his situation.
27. I emphasise that I have made these findings on the very limited evidence before me. There was no country evidence before me except the CPIN, and no expert report going to this issue.”
31. Paragraph [28] discussed the issue of internal relocation. The FtT did not consider that it had to deal with the issue, given its conclusion on state protection. It then went on to consider it briefly, presumably in the alternative. It noted the “extreme paucity” of independent evidence and the appellant’s oral evidence that Georgia was a small country, it was easy to find people and “outside the capital people are very connected such that it is easy to track people down.” The FtT noted that it was “possible that this is correct” but also that there was no “objective evidence, or expert evidence” to “support or demonstrate” it.
32. At [29], the FtT found on the evidence before it that the appellants were not entitled to humanitarian protection. It expressed the opinion, however, that a tribunal might reach a different conclusion “with the benefit of detailed evidence” on the issues of state protection and internal relocation.
33. At [30]-[45], the FtT gave its reasons for dismissing all of the appellants’ article 8 claims.
The grounds of appeal
34. The appellant raises four grounds of appeal.
Ground One: Failure to apply the correct legal test to sufficiency of protection following positive credibility findings
35. Multiple submissions were made under this heading:
(i) The FtT failed to assess whether this appellant, on the accepted facts, could access state protection;
(ii) The FtT treated the existence of state structures as determinative, rather than asking whether protection was effective in practice; in particular, it had focussed on the existence of “the prosecutor’s office”, rather than the police;
(iii) The FtT erred by drawing a distinction between organised crime and the appellant’s aggressors;
(iv) It was an error for the FtT to accept that the appellant was credible and that he believed that the police could not protect him, and to find that the CPIN “broadly supported” the appellant’s claim that the police fail to provide protection to people in general but to nonetheless give limited weight to:
a. the appellant’s evidence that his aggressors were connected to the police; and
b. the objective evidence of corruption.
(v) The FtT erred in finding that the appellant had a genuine subjective fear that the police would not protect him but nonetheless finding that protection would be available.
(vi) The FtT had applied too high a standard of proof.
Ground Two: Internal inconsistency / irrationality: acceptance of risk facts but rejection of risk outcome
36. The appellant submitted under this heading that the FtT had erred by failing to apply Para. 339K or 339L.
Ground Three: Failure to lawfully assess internal relocation in light of accepted facts
37. The appellant submitted that the FtT erred by not making findings on internal relocation in the alternative, taking into account the accepted facts. In addition, it was internally inconsistent to accept that the appellant was afraid of being located in Germany at [18] but not to find the he could be located within Georgia.
Ground Four: Failure to carry the lower standard of proof through the humanitarian protection analysis
38. The appellant here asserted that the FtT failed to apply the relevant lower standard of proof to the issues of state protection and internal relocation.
Legal Framework
39. In deciding whether the FtT made an error of law, I must bear in mind the principles reiterated in numerous cases, most recently in ECO v BB & Ors [2026] EWCA Civ 97 at [56]:
(i) The FTT is a specialist fact-finding tribunal. The UT should not rush to find an error of law simply because it might have reached a different conclusion on the facts or expressed themselves differently;
(ii) Where a relevant point was not expressly mentioned by the FTT, the UT should be slow to infer that it had not been taken into account;
(iii) When it comes to the reasons given by the FTT, the UT should exercise judicial restraint and not assume that the FTT misdirected itself just because not every step in its reasoning was fully set out;
(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;
(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;
(vi) Reasons 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.: Volpi & Anor v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464 at [2](6); and
(vii) An appellate court should avoid “island-hopping”. Fage v Chobani [2014] EWCA Civ 5.
40. As the appellant submits that the FtT misdirected itself as to the correct standard of proof, I have also taken into account the detailed guidance set out in Karanakaran v SSHD [2000] EWCA Civ 11. Although this guidance is often referred to with reference to the assessment of an appellant’s credibility, it was explicitly directed to the single question of whether an appellant’s fear of persecution on return was well-founded. Moreover, in the case before the Court of Appeal, the tribunal had accepted the appellant’s account of past events but had found that internal relocation would be safe and reasonable: [10]-[11]. The Court of Appeal was therefore clear that it was considering how the questions of “protection” and “internal relocation” should be assessed: [74].
41. Karanakaran established the following principes that are relevant here:
(i) When deciding whether a person has a well-founded fear of persecution, a decision-maker:
“may have to take into account a whole bundle of disparate pieces of evidence:
(1) evidence they are certain about;
(2) evidence they think is probably true;
(3) evidence to which they are willing to attach some credence, even if they could not go so far as to say it is probably true;
(4) evidence to which they are not willing to attach any credence at all.
[…] the decision-maker is not bound to exclude category (3) evidence as he/she would be if deciding issues that arise in civil litigation.”: [55]-[56]
(ii) “This approach does not entail the decision-maker […] purporting to find “proved” facts, whether past or present, about which it is not satisfied on the balance of probabilities. What it does mean, on the other hand, is that it must not exclude any matters from its consideration when it is assessing the future unless it feels that it can safely discard them because it has no real doubt that they did not in fact occur (or, indeed, that they are not occurring at present).”: [102]
(iii) “Needless to say […] when assessing the future, the decision-maker is entitled to place greater weight on one piece of information rather than another.”: [103]
42. In SR (Iran) v SSHD [2007] EWCA Civ 460, Sedley LJ described the tribunal’s task as follows:
“8. […] it was the AIT’s task, first, to discard any evidence judged to be of no value at all: […] For the rest, the AIT had to take each element of evidence into account for what it was worth. Some of the evidence was worth a good deal to the appellant […] Some of it, in the AIT’s judgment, was less compelling […]
9. There is nothing wrong with the differential levels of proof or disproof of primary facts found by the tribunal. […] The law does not demand, at least in this field, that each finding of fact, whatever its degree of certainty or uncertainty, be fitted into a single matrix of risk. The fact-finder's task is, to the extent made possible by the evidence, to find facts, and some facts are more certain than others. It would have been as unjust to the appellant to treat as mere possibilities things which, on the AIT's findings, were highly likely as it would have been to the respondent to treat possibilities of hardship as probabilities.”
Discussion
43. I am grateful to Mr Mavrantonis and Mr Parvar for their submissions, which I have taken into account before reaching my decision.
Ground One
44. In his submissions, Mr Mavrantonis described Ground One as a rationality challenge. Taking the written grounds and Mr Mavrantonis’ submissions together, I consider that there were a number of different ways in which the FtT was said to have acted irrationally.
45. The broadest submission is that it was irrational for the FtT to accept the appellant’s credibility but not to accept the truth of his assertion that the police would not protect him because of his attackers’ personal connections. I do not consider that the high standard for a finding of irrationality it made out here. The FtT was required to decide both whether the appellant’s fear was genuine, and whether it was well-founded. Having accepted the appellant’s credibility, it accepted that his fear was genuine. Whether the fear was well-founded was a separate issue, and the FtT was clearly entitled to consider both the independent country evidence before it and what the appellant said about the basis of his fear before reaching its conclusion on that issue. Mr Parvar put this point more simply: what the FtT accepted was the appellant’s account of what he had been told. It was not required to accept that what he had been told was true. I agree.
46. Most of the FtT’s consideration of the country evidence on this issue is at [23]. In summary, the FtT noted the evidence of the police’s lack of capacity to deal with organised crime and that the judiciary was understaffed, raising concerns about prompt and effective access to justice. The FtT described this evidence as “broadly supportive” of the appellant’s claim that the police do not provide protection to people in general and would not protect him. It then looked at the evidence pointing in the other direction (“On the other hand”). This was that the prosecutor’s office was in general effective and independent and that police corruption “lower down the hierarchy [was] not a major issue”. It ended by noting that there was nothing to suggest that the appellant’s attackers were connected to organised crime. The implication was that the evidence of the police’s lack of capacity to deal with organised crime to which it had referred above did not assist the appellant. Although the FtT did not spell out this implication, in accordance with the principles set out at [39] above, it did not have to.
47. The grounds raise several rationality challenges to this part of the FtT’s reasoning. None of them are made out. The FtT did not, as claimed in the grounds, rely on the mere existence of the prosecutor’s office rather than its effectiveness in practice. It relied on evidence about how it “conducts” its various activities. Nor did it focus only on the prosecutor’s office and ignore the evidence about the police. It referred specifically to evidence about corruption within the lower ranks of the police hierarchy. Given that the appellant had been attacked by a group of construction workers in a dispute over unpaid wages, there was nothing irrational in considering that this was the level of corruption that was relevant. Finally, there is nothing irrational in drawing a distinction between the capacity of the police to fight organised crime and their capacity to deal with a group of unpaid workers targeting their former manager. There is nothing in the evidence to suggest that the appellant ever asserted that his attackers had ties to organised crime.
48. Having come to a rational conclusion that there was limited independent evidence of police corruption that was relevant to cases such as these, the FtT then turned to consider the basis of the appellant’s fear that the police would act corruptly in his particular case, given their claimed family and personal connections to his attackers. There was no irrationality or other legal error in assessing the evidence in this order. The FtT identified the appellant’s subjective fear that the police would not protect him as based on what the attackers had said and what other colleagues had said. It gave cogent reasons for putting little weight on either source. It found that the attackers were not a reliable source, and that what the other colleagues said was very general and the basis of their knowledge was not identified. These findings cannot be said to be irrational, and the appellant has not raised any specific criticisms of them.
49. Finally, the FtT dismissed the evidence of corruption within the criminal justice system as of relatively limited relevance, and the evidence of its susceptibility to political interference as of no real relevance. It did not explain its reasons for these findings, but the reason for the latter is obvious: the appellant never said that the dispute over unpaid wages had anything to do with politics or that his attackers had any political connections. As to the evidence concerning judicial corruption, I again take into account the principles listed above at [39], and in particular that judges do not need to set out every step in their reasoning. I have read the evidence of judicial corruption that was before the FtT, and it was related to judges being in receipt of unexplained income and assets. This is not relevant to the fear expressed by the appellant, which was that the police would not offer him protection because of personal connections to his attackers. He did not say that his attackers would be able to bribe members of the judiciary.
50. For these reasons, the FtT’s findings on effectiveness of state protection cannot be said to be irrational, and that aspect of ground one is not made out.
Ground Four: Standard of proof
51. I turn next to ground four, because it challenges the same sections of the FtT’s reasoning and overlaps with one of the complaints made under ground one. In his skeleton argument and submissions, Mr Mavrantonis drew attention to the following findings by the FtT
(i) The evidence in the CPIN “does indicate that there may be serious capacity issues in policing and criminal justice in Georgia, which raise a real concern about whether there would be sufficiency of protection.”: [23]
(ii) The evidence from the Global Organised Crime Index (“GOCI”) “is broadly supportive of the Appellant’s evidence, that the police in Georgia do not provide protection to people in general, and his perception that the police could not protect him.”: [23]
(iii) “It is possible that there is a connection between the aggressors and the Georgian police, such that they would be in a position to influence or interfere with the normal course of law enforcement”: [24] and
(iv) “The evidence in the CPIN gives rise to a concern about the sufficiency of state protection for serious violent crime in Georgia”: [26]
52. Mr Mavrantonis submitted that if there “may be” serious capacity issues, the evidence was “broadly supportive” of the appellant’s case, it was “possible” that the appellant’s aggressors could influence or interfere with law enforcement and there was “a concern” about the sufficient of protection, the threshold of a “reasonable likelihood” must be met.
53. If these sentences are read in isolation, there would be some force to this argument. I consider, however, that Mr Mavrantonis was quite clearly “island hopping” here. In each of the sentences above, the FtT was setting out the evidence that supported the appellant’s fears, before turning to the evidence that suggested those fears were not well-founded. It had taken precisely the same approach when considering the respondent’s reasons for doubting the appellant’s credibility, first setting out the answers or the conduct that undermined his credibility and then giving its reasons for nonetheless finding him credible.
54. With regard to state protection, after having made the findings listed above, the FtT went on to find:
(i) “On the other hand, other evidence in the CPIN suggests” that the prosecutors conducted their responsibilities “in an effective and independent manner”, police corruption lower down the hierarchy is not a major issue” and there were special units to tackle organised crime: [23]
(ii) There was nothing to suggest that the appellant’s aggressors were associated with organised crime: [23] and
(iii) In the context of the limited country evidence, it could not give the possibility that the appellant’s attackers could influence the justice system much weight: [25].
55. In other words, the FtT took an entirely lawful approach to the evidence before it, consistent with the guidance in Karanakaran. First, it identified the evidence that supported the appellant’s case and gave it the amount of weight it considered appropriate. It then identified the evidence that told against the appellant’s case, and assigned weight to that evidence. Finally, it reached its conclusion. There is nothing to suggest that when it did so, it applied a higher standard of proof than the one to which it had repeatedly directed itself.
Ground Two
56. I consider that Para. 339L of the Immigration Rules has little relevance to the issues in the appeal before me. Para. 339L provides:
“339L. It is the duty of the person to substantiate the protection claim or substantiate their human rights claim. Where aspects of the person’s statements are not supported by documentary or other evidence, those aspects will not need confirmation when all of the following conditions are met:
(i) the person has made a genuine effort to substantiate their protection claim or substantiate their human rights claim;
(ii) all material factors at the person’s disposal have been submitted, and a satisfactory explanation regarding any lack of other relevant material has been given;
(iii) the person’s statements are found to be coherent and plausible and do not run counter to available specific and general information relevant to the person’s case;
(iv) the person has made a protection claim or made a human rights claim at the earliest possible time, unless the person can demonstrate good reason for not having done so; and
(v) the general credibility of the person has been established.”
57. The appellant’s account was accepted in its entirety, including aspects for which there was no documentary evidence. This did not require the FtT to find that his beliefs about the police, although genuinely held, were objectively well-founded.
58. Para. 339K provides:
“339K. The fact that a person has already been subject to persecution or serious harm, or to direct threats of such persecution or such harm, will be regarded as a serious indication of the person’s well-founded fear of persecution or real risk of suffering serious harm, unless there are good reasons to consider that such persecution or serious harm will not be repeated.”
59. It is true that the FtT did not refer to this paragraph of the Rules, or direct itself that it needed to identify “good reasons” to consider that the serious harm to which the appellant had been subjected would not be repeated. It nonetheless gave careful consideration to the chief reason identified by the respondent, which was the availability of state protection. It weighed the evidence both against and for that reason, before reaching its conclusion that it was not reasonably likely that state protection would not be available. Put another way, it concluded that state protection was likely to be available. That finding was a good reason that the harm the appellant had suffered would not be repeated. Para. 339K was applied in substance, if not in form.
Ground Three: Internal relocation
60. There are legitimate criticisms that could be made of the FtT’s findings on internal relocation. The FtT first said that it would not deal with the issue, but then it appears to have done so. It then rejected the appellant’s claims about the size and social structure of Georgia simply because they were not independently corroborated, which arguably it was not entitled to do. These are, arguably, matters that could be within the knowledge of an adult who had spent almost all of their life in Georgia, and the FtT therefore should have given reasons for rejecting the appellant’s evidence. As Mr Mavrantonis conceded in his submissions, however, this ground rises and falls with the other grounds. If there would be sufficient state protection, the need for internal relocation does not arise.
61. For these reasons, there were no material errors of law requiring the FtT’s decision to be set aside.

Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 20 January 2026 is upheld. The appellants’ appeals are dismissed.

E. Ruddick

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

20 August 2026