Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-003501
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/64980/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

27th August 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BLUNDELL

Between

AS
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Determined on the papers under rule 34

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. I make this order because the appellant is an asylum seeker. There is evidence that naming the appellant will increase the risk they would face if returned to their country of origin.]

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant is a Georgian national who has been granted permission to appeal against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Craft (“the judge”). By a decision which was issued on 12 March 2026, the judge dismissed the appellant’s appeal on protection and human rights grounds.

2. No fewer than eight grounds of appeal were advanced against the judge’s decision. Judge Hollings-Tennant considered each of those grounds to be arguable and granted permission accordingly.

3. By a rule 24 notice which was filed and served on 21 July 2026, the respondent indicated that she was content to accept that the judge had erred in law. She gave the following reasons for that concession:

It is accepted that it is unclear whether or not the appellant has been treated as a vulnerable witness and whether or not the credibility of the appellant was viewed through [sic] aspect. The second ground argues the FTTJ drew inference from the fact the appellant did not live openly as a gay man. The FTTJ did not engage in the appellants [sic] explanation that his sexuality had been privately experienced.

Regarding the appellants [sic] medical documents weight is a matter for the Tribunal, however the FTTJ was entitled to find there was a lack of evidence from the appellants [sic] mother in the UK. However the FTTJ may have considered the credibility of the appellant with this in mind. There is no assessment to the risk on return considering the factors of his families [sic] political issues and his claimed sexuality.

4. The respondent submitted that the appeal should be remitted to the FtT for hearing afresh by a different judge.

5. The rule 24 notice was placed before me on 11 August 2026. I directed that the appellant’s solicitors should indicate whether they were content with the relief proposed by the respondent. By email dated 18 August 2026, the appellant’s solicitors indicated that they were indeed content for the appeal to be remitted de novo.

6. I am satisfied that I should resolve this appeal without a hearing, given that the parties are ad idem on the outcome.

7. I am also satisfied that the respondent’s concession was properly made. The judge found the appellant’s evidence to be “unsatisfactory and not credible” and that the evidence was “full of contradictions”: [51]. The judge found that the “appellant’s evidence of the difficulties he encountered for over a year after S departed from Georgia is unsustainable.”

8. In reaching those findings, however, the judge failed to record whether the appellant was a vulnerable witness or to consider the effect any identified vulnerability had in the assessment of the evidence. The judge was required to do so by [15] of the Joint Presidential Guidance Note No 2 of 2010, the importance of which was underscored by the Court of Appeal in AM (Afghanistan) v SSHD [2017] Imm AR 1508.

9. The appellant was an Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Child when he entered the UK and his account of events in Georgia was necessarily to be evaluated with that vulnerability in mind. The judge erred in law in failing to do so, and I am satisfied that the first ground of appeal is therefore made out.

10. It is unnecessary, in those circumstances, to consider the remaining grounds. The judge’s failure to undertake a lawful assessment of the appellant’s credibility must, as the parties jointly recognise, result in the setting aside of the FtT’s decision as a whole. The proper course is to remit the appeal to the FtT for hearing afresh by a different judge. The parties agree that that is the appropriate relief and I shall order accordingly.

Notice of Decision

The decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved the making of an error on a point of law, and the decision is set aside. The appeal is remitted to be heard de novo by a judge other than Judge Craft.

Mark Blundell

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

19 August 2026