Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-003485
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/65925/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 8th of September 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KEBEDE

Between

JSA
(Anonymity Order made)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms Zia, instructed by Philip Jones Legal
For the Respondent: Ms A Nolan, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 3 September 2026

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant is a citizen of Egypt born on 1 July 1996. He appeals, with permission, against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dismissing his appeal against the respondent’s decision to refuse his asylum and human rights claim.
2. The appellant arrived in the UK illegally, by boat, on 13 November 2022, having left Egypt in September 2022 and travelled through Libya, Italy and France. He attended a screening interview on 23 November 2022 and a full asylum interview in three parts on 28 March 2024, 17 April 2024 and 13 May 2024. His claim was refused on 24 May 2024. He appealed against that decision and his appeal is the subject of these proceedings.
3. The basis of the appellant’s asylum claim is twofold: he fears being the victim of a blood feud and fears the family of M, a woman who was his neighbour and with whom he became romantically involved and had sexual intercourse; and he fears being imprisoned by the authorities because he was convicted of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He claims that he started a relationship with M in 2021, and continued the relationship after a marriage proposal was refused by her family, and that he was stabbed in an altercation with M’s brother in March 2022 when he found out about the ongoing relationship, and was hospitalised. He claims that he moved to his uncle’s house in Alexandria but the house was attacked in July 2022 and at the same time his parents’ house was raided by the police who were looking for him after M’s family made false accusations that he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
4. The respondent, in her refusal decision, did not accept any of the appellant’s claim aside from his nationality. The respondent noted various inconsistencies and omissions in the appellant’s claim, in particular the fact that he had failed to make any mention in his screening interview and witness statement dated 7 September 2023 of being falsely accused of membership of the Muslim Brotherhood. The respondent considered that the appellant had given an inconsistent account of the treatment he suffered from M’s family in Egypt, of when and where in his body he was stabbed and for how long he was in hospital, of when he was accused of being a member of a terrorist organisation, and of who reported the matter to the police, and that he had failed to substantiate his claim that M’s family was in a position of power or influence in Egypt and capable of influencing the judicial system. The respondent noted that the appellant had provided supporting documents for his claim, including a medical report and judicial documents, but did not give them weight since the medical report contained information which was inconsistent with the appellant’s own account and the judicial documents were not accompanied by original copies. The respondent did not accept that the appellant had presented a credible account of being prosecuted in Egypt and did not accept that he had been convicted for political reasons. It was considered that, with regard to his claimed fear of M’s family, he would be able to seek protection from the authorities or internally relocate to another part of the country. The respondent therefore concluded that the appellant would be at no risk on return to Egypt and that his removal to Egypt would not breach his human rights.
5. The appellant appealed against the respondent’s decision. His appeal came before the First-tier Tribunal on 23 April 2026. The appellant gave oral evidence before the judge. The judge found the accounts given by the appellant in relation to having been stabbed by M’s brother to be inconsistent, noting that he made no mention of being stabbed in his screening interview and that he gave different accounts of when he was stabbed, how many times he was stabbed and where in his body he was stabbed, and was not satisfied that he was stabbed in the circumstances claimed. With regard to the appellant’s claim to have been falsely accused of membership of the Muslim Brotherhood resulting in a conviction and sentence of 10 years in Egypt, the judge noted that the appellant had made no mention of that in his screening interview and that he had given contradictory accounts in his interviews as to when he received the 10-year sentence. The judge had before her Court documents for the appellant which included a conviction for membership of the Muslim Brotherhood dated 23 February 2023, a list of persons subject to a travel ban dated 8 March 2023 and an arrest warrant dated 30 May 2022. She considered that the dates in the documents did not correspond with the appellant’s account and she therefore accorded little weight to the documents. The judge did not accept the appellant’s account of being stabbed in Egypt and of being convicted as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and she did not accept his claim to be a victim of a blood feud between himself and the family of M. The judge concluded that the appellant would be at no risk on return to Egypt and that his removal to that country would not breach his human rights, and she accordingly dismissed the appeal.
6. The appellant sought permission to appeal against the judge’s decision on six grounds: a failure to give reasons/make findings regarding the material matter of the appellant’s supporting documentary evidence; a failure to properly assess risk on return in accordance with the country information on Egypt; irrationality / perverse findings; procedural unfairness and a lack of reasoned decision; a mistake of fact; and a lack of adequate and clear reasons.
7. Permission was granted in the First-tier Tribunal on the following basis:
“1. The application is in time.
2. The grounds of appeal assert that the Judge erred in numerous respects.
3. Having considered the grounds and the judgment I am satisfied that there are arguable errors of law such that permission should be granted. It is difficult for me to resolve the issue in relation to the unfairness point as I do not know the Judge’s thinking or reasoning but this can be ventilated on appeal.
4. The remainder of the grounds are arguable for the reasons given in the application and need no elucidation or amplification from me.
5. Permission is so granted.”
8. The respondent provided a rule 24 response opposing the appeal, submitting that the grounds were no more than an attempt to re-argue the appeal.
9. The matter came before me for a hearing. I heard submissions from both parties.
10. Ms Zia submitted, with regard to ground one, that the judge’s decision did not show that consideration had been given to the documentary evidence at pages 22 to 32 of the appeal bundle or that weight had been given to it. There was a failure to consider the medical evidence about the appellant’s stab wound. Ms Zia submitted that the case of MAH (Egypt) v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 360 made clear that an absence of corroboration was not fatal. She submitted that the judge had applied the wrong standard of proof and ought to have referred to a ‘real risk’. The judge failed to assess risk and erred by making a risk assessment which was driven by adverse credibility findings rather than the documents. The judge’s adverse findings at [19] and [25] did not provide any proper explanation or reasoning. Ms Zia submitted further that there was procedural unfairness and bias shown by the judge as there were interventions which impacted upon her assessment. There were material errors and the decision ought to be set aside.
11. Ms Nolan relied on the Rule 24 response and responded to the grounds. She submitted that the judge considered the documents and gave proper reasons for according them little weight. She did not accept the basis of the claim and therefore did not need to consider risk on return. There was nothing irrational in the judge’s findings. The judge applied the correct standard of proof in accordance with section 32 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the guidance in JCK (s.32 NABA 2022) Botswana [2024] UKUT 00100. The procedural unfairness allegation was not supported by a record of proceedings or written statement to show how the judge went beyond any permitted intervention. As for the assertion of mistake of fact, there was no explanation what the mistake of fact was.
12. Ms Zia did not seek to respond.
Analysis
13. I have found the grounds of appeal and the submissions made for the appellant rather difficult to comprehend. The grounds are poorly drafted and it is not clear why permission was granted in the first place. No specific reasons are provided in the decision granting permission.
14. Ground one is a mixture of rather haphazard assertions and allegations. The main assertions made in that ground is that the judge failed to consider the documentary evidence, made findings which were inconsistent with the documents, and failed to given reasons for according the weight that she did to the documents. Not only is it the case that those assertions are vague and lack specific reference to the relevant parts of the judge’s decision, simply quoting large sections of the decision without explanation or analysis, but they are clearly wrong. The judge expressly considered the medical evidence relied upon by the appellant at [17] and [18], noting at [17] that the letter from the hospital in Egypt dated 3 February 2022 was inconsistent with the appellant’s own evidence in several respects. The judge also expressly referred to the court documents at [21] and explained what they were, or purported to be. At [22] the judge, applying the principles in Tanveer Ahmed (Documents unreliable and forged) Pakistan * [2002] UKIAT 00439, considered the reliability of the court documents in the round, as part of the evidence as a whole, and gave clear and sustainable reasons for attaching little weight to them. Those reasons included the fact that there were concerns about their provenance given that originals had not been produced and given the lack of any accompanying covering letter from the lawyer in Egypt who was said to have sent them to the appellant, and further that the contents of the documents contained inconsistencies. The judge found that the dates in the documents did not correspond to the appellant’s own evidence, noting in particular that the date of conviction and sentencing to 10 years’ imprisonment in the court documents was 23 February 2023, which was after the appellant had arrived in the UK, whereas he had claimed at his interview that he had become aware of the conviction whilst he was still in Egypt. The grounds make no challenge to those specific findings and provide no information as to how the judge’s own findings were inconsistent with the evidence. Ms Zia’s submissions went no further than the grounds, asserting simply that the judge failed to consider the documents.
15. As for the other assertions in ground one, those make little sense or are misconceived. There is mention of a finding on the absence of a WhatsApp message trail between the appellant and his brother, yet there is nothing in the judge’s decision to that effect, and it is not clear to what that refers. If the assertion is that the judge was wrong to require corroboration of the provenance of the documentary evidence and how the appellant received it, that is clearly misconceived, as the judge was perfectly entitled to have concerns in regard to the provenance of the documents. Further, both the grounds and the submissions assert that the judge applied a higher standard of proof than the “reasonable degree of likelihood”. Ms Zia referred to [25] of the judge’s decision in that respect. However the judge plainly correctly applied the ‘balance of probabilities’ standard of proof for a case falling within NABA, having properly self-directed herself at [12] in accordance with the guidance in JCK, and the grounds are misconceived in asserting otherwise.
16. There is accordingly nothing of merit in ground one. The judge undertook a full assessment of all the documents. She gave clear reasons for finding the appellant’s account to be lacking in credibility. She noted his failure to make any mention in his screening interview of being stabbed and of being accused of membership of the Muslim Brotherhood and she identified various inconsistencies in his evidence and in the documentary evidence. For the reasons properly given the judge was fully entitled to make the adverse findings that she did.
17. Ground two asserts that the judge failed to properly assess risk on return and failed to consider the country information about Egypt. However, as Ms Nolan submitted, the judge did not accept the basis of the appellant’s claim and rejected his account of having been stabbed by M’s brother, of being a victim of a blood feud and of being false accused of and convicted for membership of the Muslim Brotherhood. The judge found that the appellant had failed to establish the factual basis upon which the claimed risk depended and there was therefore no need for her to consider risk on return. There was no relevance in the judge considering the country evidence about the treatment of persons associated with the Muslim Brotherhood when she had rejected the appellant’s account of having been perceived to have any such association. There is therefore also no merit in ground two.
18. Ground three is equally lacking in merit. There was nothing perverse or irrational in the judge concluding that the appellant would be at no risk on return to Egypt, having made the adverse credibility findings that she did for the reasons properly given.
19. The fourth ground, asserting procedural unfairness, differs in the written grounds and the submissions made by Ms Zia. Neither has any merit. As with the other grounds, the written ground four is poorly particularised and has, in any event, already been addressed in so far as I have found that the judge gave adequate reasons for rejecting the appellant’s account. Ms Zia, in her submissions on procedural unfairness, relied upon the case of Hossain [2024] EWCA Civ 608 and made allegations of procedural unfairness on the part of the judge in terms of bias and inappropriate questioning of the appellant, a matter referred to at [20] and [21] of the written grounds, at ground six. However neither the grounds nor Ms Zia particularise those allegations. Ms Zia did not produce any supporting evidence and, when asked, was unable to give any examples of untoward questioning of the appellant by the judge, submitting simply that she was present at the hearing. When I pointed out to her that there was nothing in the decision to suggest any excessive questioning by the judge and no statement or record of the evidence to support what was a serious allegation, she simply said that she would move on with her submissions. Having considered the judge’s decision, and in the absence of any supporting evidence from the appellant, I find no basis whatsoever for concluding that there was any procedural unfairness in the judge’s approach or decision-making.
20. Ms Zia did not make further submissions on ground five. Ground five asserts that there was a mistake of fact but does not explain what the mistake of fact was. There is simply a quotation from [25] of the judge’s decision where the judge made a finding that the appellant did not have a genuine fear of persecution upon return to Egypt owing to his imputed political opinion. I can only assume that the appellant simply disagrees with that conclusion. That is not a reason for concluding that the judge erred in fact or law. As for ground six, that is a repeat of the earlier assertion that the judge’s decision lacked adequate reasons and a further reiteration of Ms Zia’s allegation of bias, both of which have already been discussed and found to be of no merit.
21. For all these reasons I do not accept that the grounds identify any errors of law in the judge’s decision. The appellant had a full and fair hearing. There was no procedural unfairness in the judge’s approach or in her assessment of the appellant’s credibility. The appeal was dismissed for reasons which were fully and properly explained in the judge’s decision and which were entirely open to the judge on the evidence before her. The judge’s decision is accordingly upheld.

Notice of Decision
22. The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve a material error on a point of law requiring it to be set aside. The decision to dismiss the appeal stands.

Anonymity Order
The Anonymity Order previously made is continued.

Signed: S Kebede
Upper Tribunal Judge Kebede

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

4 September 2026