Immigration Law · First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
SM & Ors v The Secretary of State for the Home Department
Checked against the judgment on 10 September 2026 · how we verify
Facts
The lead appellant, SM, is a Kurd who says he was born in Iran in 1986 to Iraqi parents, moved to Iraqi Kurdistan in 2002 or 2003, and has only ever held Iraqi nationality. In 2009 he eloped with his first wife, HN, against her family's wishes, and the couple were targeted by her uncle, a tribal leader. They fled Iraq in March 2011 with their eldest son and claimed asylum in Denmark, where two further sons were born. The couple divorced in 2017. SM came to the UK on 10 July 2020 and claimed asylum; after an initial third country refusal the respondent agreed on 14 January 2021 to consider the claim here. When HN remarried and gave up the children, SM collected them from Germany and claimed asylum again on 27 December 2021 with the three boys as dependants. In the UK he married an Iranian Kurd, who with their eldest daughter was recognised as a refugee on 8 February 2024. The Secretary of State refused the claims on 30 November 2023. The First-tier Tribunal treated the appeals as abandoned, but the Upper Tribunal quashed that decision and remitted the appeals for remaking, the Home Office not attending the remitted hearing.
What did the court decide?
Four things on this page are for subscribers:
- The decision: what the court actually held
- The issues: the questions it had to answer
- The reasoning: how it got there, in its own logic
- The case history: every step, court by court
CaseLawDigest reads every judgment published on Find Case Law for England and Wales, files it by practice area, and writes a summary a practitioner can use. One weekly PDF per area, and the full archive here.
One practice area is £19 a month, and the weekly PDF lands in your inbox.
See the plans Or take the free digestOn your firm’s subscription? Set up your access. Already have an account? Sign in.