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History of asylum appeals in the United Kingdom

In 2025, the government announced that it intends to make changes to asylum appeals. These changes would include creating a new “independent appeals body” of “professional adjudicators” to hear such appeals, which are currently heard by immigration judges in the First-tier Tribunal.

This briefing examines previous changes to the structure of asylum appeals over the years. A September 2025 briefing by Amnesty International captures the main shifts:

In May 1969, Parliament created a two-tier system to deal with appeals against various Home Office decisions. Appeals were generally made to and decided by people called adjudicators. If permission was granted, an adjudicator’s decision could be appealed, including by the Home Office, to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal. This two-tier appeals system was later formally constituted as the Immigration Appellate Authority (IAA). The rules governing appeals procedures were made by the Home Secretary, a power which was later transferred to the Lord Chancellor.

On 4 April 2005, the IAA was replaced by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT). The change involved changing the title of the people who decided appeals from adjudicators to judges. The change gave the appearance of merging a two-tier system into one. However, the system remained two-tier. If permission was granted, a more senior judge could review a decision of the first tier of that system. This process was called reconsideration rather than appeal but was essentially the same.

On 15 February 2010, the AIT was abolished, and its functions passed to the current appeals body. The change involved moving the judges from the AIT to the current body. The second tier of this body (the Upper Tribunal) has a higher status making it more difficult to seek judicial review of its decision to refuse permission to appeal against a decision of the first tier (the First-tier Tribunal). This appeals body also has more independence from government, including over the rules that govern the appeals for which it is responsible.

The attached briefing goes into more detail on all these developments. It does not cover changes to the substance of appeal rights over time; these are summarised in a 2019 report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

For general context: claims for asylum are usually based on the United Nations Refugee Convention, which the UK has ratified.