Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-002775
UI-2026-002777
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/57678/2024
PA/57683/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

22nd September 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BULPITT

Between

SPH (First Appellant)
HTSH (Second Appellant)
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms S Anzani, Counsel instructed by Nag Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr A Sansom, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 17 September 2026

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellants and their family are 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 appellants or their family. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The first appellant is the father of the second appellant and they are both citizens of Sri Lanka. They are part of a family of four, including the wife of the first appellant (mother of the second appellant) and the younger son of the first appellant (younger brother of the second appellant). Until June 2022 the family lived in Kadawatha, Sri Lanka. On 15 June 2022 the family travelled to the United Kingdom having been granted visas which permitted them to visit for a holiday. The following month the appellants made protection claims to remain in the United Kingdom. The respondent treated the first appellant’s wife and younger son as dependants on his protection claim and considered the second appellant’s claim separately.

2. On 11 March 2024 the respondent issued decisions refusing both appellants’ protection and human rights claims. The appellants appealed against those decisions and their appeal were consolidated and heard together by First-tier Tribunal Judge Malik (the Judge) on 11 February 2026. On 16 March 2026 the Judge issued a decision dismissing the appellants’ appeals. The appellants were granted permission to appeal against the Judge’s decision by a different First-tier Tribunal Judge. Pursuant to section 12(1) Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, the issue for me to resolve to determine that appeal is whether the Judge’s decision involved the making of an error of law?

The appellant’s claim and the respondent’s decision

3. The appellants protection claim was based on a fear the appellants argued each of the family have of persecution by the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL). It was said that the first appellant was involved with his local housing association and as such arranged and hosted meetings at which local politicians were criticised. It was also said that the first appellant was a part time journalist and that he would post stories critical of the GOSL on a website he maintained. Things escalated in 2021 when the local MP sought to buy land that belonged to the housing association. When the housing association opted not to sell, the MP for the District and the Minister of Urban Development in the GOSL arranged for a gang of thugs to attack the members of the housing association while they met. Following that attack the first appellant received threats and demands that he stop posting stories on his website.

4. In April 2022 there was growing civil unrest in Sri Lanka, with meetings of the housing association being attended by 500 people and demonstrations taking place against the government some of which were attended by the two appellants. On 20 April 2022 the first appellant was abducted by armed men while walking. He was able to escape when the van in which he was being transported crashed. Two days later there was an attempt to abduct the second appellant from his school. After this incident the children stopped attending school and the family went into hiding. The family home was attacked and damaged and the first appellant’s wife and younger son were threatened by gunmen when they went to the house to collect belongings. The family reported these incidents to the police, but nothing was done. The family decided to leave Sri Lanka and obtained visas to visit the United Kingdom through an agent. They also arranged for a friend who was an immigration officer to facilitate their exit from the country through the airport. Having arrived in the United Kingdom they were informed that gunmen had visited their house looking for them and later learnt that an arrest had been issued for the first appellant’s arrest. While in the United Kingdom the first appellant has continued to post articles critical of the GOSL on his website.

5. The respondent refused the appellants claims in decisions issued on 11 March 2024. It was accepted that the appellants had raised claims which engaged the Refugee Convention. It was not accepted however that the first appellant had been politically active while in Sri Lanka or that he had come to the adverse attention of the GOSL. The appellants’ claim was found to be inconsistent, lacking in detail and implausible. It was also considered to be inconsistent with information about Sri Lanka which indicated that citizens have the right to express their political views. It was found that the appellants had unreasonably failed to adduce evidence of the critical news articles. The respondent found the appellants account of hiding following the abduction to be implausible and inconsistent with the family obtaining visas to come to the United Kingdom then passing through the airport unopposed. The respondent said that no evidence had been adduced to support the assertion that the first appellant was subject to an arrest warrant and found that it would be reasonable to expect such evidence. The respondent considered the first appellant’s account of his journalistic activity in the United Kingdom to be inconsistent. The respondent did not accept therefore that the appellants fear persecution in Sri Lanka or that they would be at risk of persecution or ill-treatment if they were to return. The respondent also refused a human rights claim concluding that the family could return to Sri Lanka together without facing very significant obstacles to integration on their return.

The appeal to the First-tier Tribunal and the Judge’s Decision

6. Although the appellants brought their appeal in March 2024, the appeal was not heard until 11 February 2026. In the meantime, in May 2025, the appellant served further evidence in support of their claim. That evidence included witness statements from the two appellants, a media identity card in the name of the first appellant, evidence that the first appellant’s website had been hacked with content being deleted, evidence of the family living away from home in the months immediately prior to their departure from Sri Lanka and evidence of a criminal investigation and prosecution of the first appellant which was adduced by a Sri Lankan lawyer who said she had obtained the evidence from the Magistrates Court in Colombo.

7. The respondent was not represented at the hearing before the Judge and there is no indication that the further evidence adduced by the appellants was considered by the respondent prior to that hearing. No criticism is made however of the Judge’s decision to proceed in the absence of the respondent. The Judge records that the appellants gave oral evidence with their statements being adopted as their evidence in chief. The Judge heard submissions from Ms Anzani who represented the appellants at the First-tier Tribunal and in the hearing before me. The Judge reserved her decision which was promulgated on 16 March 2026.

8. Having set out the background to the appeal, the Judge identified at [10] of her decision that the issues to be resolved were “credibility; whether there is a well-founded fear of persecution; sufficiency of protection and internal relocation; humanitarian protection and Article 8 of the ECHR, family and private life, including the best interests of a child.” The Judge then set out the legal framework to be applied before turning to her “findings.”

9. At [13] the Judge directed herself that a “universal finding of adverse credibility” should not be made simply because evidence on peripheral matters is not credible or lies have been told. The Judge then stated: “However, I am entitled to find an appellant wholly incredible if adverse credibility relates to the core of their claim.”

10. The Judge’s assessment of the appellants’ protection claims is all contained in [14] of her decision. The Judge commenced that assessment by stating:

All documentary evidence not translated into English, I cannot consider. Any documents not translated by a UK certified translator carries little weight. The evidence the appellants rely on from Sri Lanka such as claimed police reports/articles and arrest warrant, some handwritten and not translated in the UK, carry little weight – more so in circumstances where I find the appellants account to lack credibility for the following reasons:
11. In sub-paragraphs [14(a)] – [14(n)] the Judge comprehensively disbelieved the appellants’ accounts, making various findings of fact including: that the assertion the appellant fled Sri Lanka because their lives were at risk is incredible [14(a)], that they have not provided a truthful account of being at risk in Sri Lanka [14(b)], that they have not given a truthful account and “are nothing more than economic migrants in the UK” [14(c)], that they had provided a wholly incredible account [14(f)], that they had fabricated the core of their claim to form a false protection claim [14(g)], that they have provided an incredible account of being at risk [14(h)], that they have fabricated their claim of being at risk [14(i)] and that posts made by the first appellant on his website since being in the United Kingdom “are nothing more than him seeking to bolster his and A2’s already untruthful protection claim”.

12. Accordingly the Judge dismissed the appellants protections appeals. The Judge then went on to consider their human rights claims and, having found that it would be in the best interests of the first appellant’s younger son to return to Sri Lanka with the rest of his family, concluded that the public interest in effective immigration control outweighed the appellants private and family life interest, the Judge dismissed the appellants human rights appeal.

The appeal to this Tribunal

13. The appellants were granted permission to appeal to this Tribunal on three grounds. Those grounds aver that the Judge (i) erred in her approach to the documentary evidence that was adduced, (ii) gave flawed and speculative reasoning for disbelieving the first appellant’s account about his journalism, and (iii) made irrational and speculative findings about the appellants’ credibility.

14. In her very helpful oral submissions Ms Anzani argued that the first ground of appeal identified the central error in the Judge’s decision. She submitted that highly significant documentary evidence had been adduced, including certified copies of a complaint filed against the first appellant by the Criminal Investigation Division (CID), a Court Order issuing a warrant, and a warrant for the arrest of the first appellant. Mr Anzani argued that the Judge’s only engagement with that evidence came at the beginning of [14] of the decision when the evidence was discounted because it had been translated outside of the United Kingdom and because the Judge found the appellants’ account to lack credibility. Ms Anzani argued that this involved an error of law and that rather than considering whether the documents made it more likely the appellants account was true, the Judge discounted the documents because she had already concluded the account was not true.

15. In relation to grounds two and three Ms Anzani submitted that the Judge’s adverse findings about the credibility of the appellants account was based on speculative and illogical reasoning. Ms Anzani argued that the Judge speculated about how persecutors in Sri Lanka would behave. Ms Anzani also submitted that the Judge’s conclusion that a friend would not risk his life to help the family pass safely through immigration control at Colombo airport and that the family would not have been able to pass through the airport using their own passports was inconsistent with the findings in the Country Guidance case of GJ and Others (post-civil war: returnees) Sri Lanka CG [2013] UKUT 00319 (IAC). Ms Anzani further submitted that reasoning such as at [14(k)] that an arrest warrant would not be issued for a person after they have left the country, and at [14(m)] that a person would not be issued with a journalist’s ID card by the government he opposes, defied logic.

16. The respondent did not take the opportunity to reply to the grounds of appeal in writing, but Mr Sansom confirmed that the appeal was opposed. He reminded me in his helpful submissions that the Judge’s decision did not need to be overly detailed or to cite all the evidence, that the weight to be attached to different pieces of evidence was a matter for the Judge and that the Judge should be taken to be aware of the leading authorities and to be seeking to apply them. Mr Sansom recognised that the Judge’s reasoning was concise but argued that it was adequate and rational.

17. In relation to the first ground of appeal Mr Sansom drew my attention to the decision of a Presidential panel of this Tribunal in QC (verification of documents; Mibanga duty) China [2021] UKUT 00033 (IAC) (QC) and to the seminal case of Tanveer Ahmed [2002] UKIAT 00439. He argued that the Judge was entitled to assess the documentary evidence in the light of her concerns about the credibility of the appellants account, and argued that by doing so the Judge was assessing the evidence in the round. In relation to grounds two and three Mr Sansom argued that country guidance cases focus on Tamil separatism and that the findings in GJ and Others and the later KK and RS (Sur place activities: risk) Sri Lanka CG [2021] UKUT 00130 (IAC) can be distinguished from the appellants situation where it is not suggested they are seeking to establish a separate state. Mr Sansom argued that the Judge’s analysis of the appellants account was holistic and considered the different factors cumulatively. He argued that it did not involve an error of law.

Analysis

Ground one
18. I am satisfied that the Judge’s consideration of the documentary evidence involved a material error of law and that the first ground of appeal relied upon by the appellants is made out.

19. The primary engagement with the documentary evidence is recorded at the passage of [14] from the Judge’s decision which is set out at [10] above. The first part of that analysis is superfluous. Whilst it is correct to note that the Judge would be unable to consider evidence that has not been translated into English, there was no such evidence adduced. The appellant’s bundle of evidence included translated copies of what was said to be a CID report, a Court order and a warrant. The material submitted by the applicant before the respondent made her decision and included in the respondent’s bundle of evidence, included translated copies of a newspaper article and translated extracts from “the information book of Kadawatha Police Station.” There was no evidence before the Judge that had not been translated into English.

20. All of the translated documents before the Judge originated in Sri Lanka and they are stamped to say they were translated by translators in Sri Lanka. In relation to those documents, the Judge stated that “The evidence the appellants rely on from Sri Lanka such as claimed police reports / article and arrest warrant, some handwritten and not translated in the UK, carry little weight.” A close reading of the rest of [14] reveals three explanations for that conclusion – the fact some of the documents are handwritten, the fact that the documents were not translated in the United Kingdom and Judge’s finding that the appellants account lack’s credibility.

21. The Judge does not say in terms that little weight is given to the documents because some of them are handwritten though that is the implication of this fact being mentioned. No further explanation of the relevance of documents being handwritten is provided and on the face of it the fact that some of the documents were handwritten provides no legitimate basis for giving the documents little weight, especially in the absence of any evidence about how records are kept in Sri Lanka.

22. At the beginning of [14] the Judge baldly states that “Any documents not translated by a UK certified translator carries little weight.” No justification is given for this statement which I find to be baseless and discloses an error of law. There is no legal principle or other basis for stating categorically that documents translated outside the United Kingdom carry little weight. The weight to be given to any document in an assessment of the evidence is a matter for the Judge to determine. It would be fair to observe that the circumstances in which a document came to be translated and who translated the document can and often will be relevant to the assessment of the reliability of the evidence and the weight to be attached to it. However, the Judge’s apparent approach that “any” evidence that is translated outside of the United Kingdom must be given little weight demonstrates a failure to approach the evidence with an open mind and a failure to consider the evidence on its merits.

23. The final reason for giving little weight to all the documentary evidence adduced by the appellants -the finding that the appellants account lacks credibility - reveals that the Judge failed to comply with what was described in QC as “the Mibanga duty”. The Tribunal summed up that duty, having reviewed relevant authorities, including the Court of Appeal decision in Francois Mibanga v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] EWCA Civ 367 at [57] of QC:

57. To sum up, the judicial fact-finder has a duty to make his or her decision by reference to all the relevant evidence and needs to show in their decision that they have done so. The actual way in which the fact-finder goes about this task is a matter for them. As has been pointed out, one has to start somewhere. At the end of the day, what matters is whether the decision contains legally adequate reasons for the outcome. The greater the apparent cogency and relevance of a particular piece of evidence, the greater is the need for the judicial fact-finder to show that they have had due regard to that evidence; and, if the fact-finder’s overall conclusion is contrary to the apparent thrust of that evidence, the greater is the need to explain why that evidence has not brought about a different outcome.

24. The documentary evidence adduced by the appellant in this case had a clear cogency and relevance. If it was accepted to be reliable it provided strong support for the credibility of the appellant’s account i.e. if the documents were found to be reliable it was more likely that the appellants were telling the truth about being pursued by the GOSL. The Judge in this case however determined that the documents were not reliable because she concluded the appellants were not telling the truth and had fabricated their accounts. By doing so the Judge failed to show that she had made her decision by reference to all the evidence and failed to show why, contrary to the thrust of the documentary evidence, she concluded the applicants had not provided a truthful account.

Grounds two and three
25. Despite reminding myself of the caution to be exercised when interfering with the evaluative decision of a first instance judge (see [29] of Lowe v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 62) I also find that the Judge’s analysis of the credibility of the appellants account at [14(a)] – [14(m)] involved an error of law.

26. I agree with Ms Anzani’s submissions that some of the reasoning provided by the Judge for her trenchant adverse assessment of the appellants evidence in these sub-paragraphs cross the line into illogical or irrational speculation. The suggestion at [14(f)] [14(g)] and [14(i)] that the appellants accounts were fabricated and false because had their lives genuinely been threatened the threats would have been carried out, seems to me to be rather circular and to lack reason. The suggestion at [14(k)] that there is no credible explanation for why the authorities would issue an arrest warrant after the first appellant had left the country does not recognise the fact that warrants are frequently issued for people’s arrest after they have left a jurisdiction. The suggestion at [14(l)] that a person selling a website domain could comment on whether that website had previously been hacked appears to me to be unrealistic.

27. I also agree with the submission that the finding at [14(d)] that the appellants claim to have arranged with a friend who is an immigration officer, to go through Colombo airport without opposition is not credible, fails to recognise the country guidance provided at [170] of GJ and Others. In that paragraph the respondent accepted that the prevalence of bribery and corruption in Sri Lanka meant that leaving Sri Lanka without difficulty was not probative of a lack of adverse interest in an individual. The country evidence therefore was that corrupt officials can and do assist others to pass through the airport.

28. I recognise that the Judge’s written reasons can only provide an incomplete statement of the impression which was made on her by the primary evidence. I also acknowledge the challenge presented by having to explain an assessment of the likelihood that an account is true. Any attempt to do so will necessarily involve a penumbra of imprecision as to emphasis, relative weight, minor qualification and nuance. I do however conclude that the reasons given by the Judge for so comprehensively rejecting the appellants account as untrue and fabricated and for describing them as “nothing more than economic migrants in the UK” fail to adequately explain that conclusion and fail to demonstrate a lawful and rational assessment of all the evidence in the round. The Judge was not required to accept the appellants account, she was however required to give rational and adequate explanation which showed that the evidence had been lawfully considered and to enable the appellants to understand why they were disbelieved.

Conclusion
29. For all these reasons I am satisfied that the decision of the Judge involved a material error of law such that it must be set aside with no findings of fact preserved. The agreed position of the parties was that in those circumstances the appeal would need to be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for the appeal to be reconsidered anew and a fresh decision made. I agree with that position, which reflect the guidance provided in Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] that the nature and extent of necessary fact finding may require an appeal to be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for re-hearing.

Notice of Decision

The appeal is allowed

The decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Malik involved an error of law and is set aside. The appeal is remitted for a fresh hearing in the First-tier Tribunal.

Luke Bulpitt
Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
18 September 2026