In a recent decision, Mohammed Ismael Suliman Abdullah for judicial review [2024] ScotCS CSOH_8, the Court of Session clarified that when a young person is seeking for a court to make a finding in relation to their age in Scotland, the action should be raised as a declarator of age...
The case of R (Karimi) v Sheffield City Council [2024] EWHC 93 (Admin) is a reminder of the importance of filing skeleton arguments in a timely manner with the court. Mr Justice Fordham KC was considering the issue of permission in an age assessment judicial review against a local authority...
The Immigration (Age Assessments) Regulations 2024 providing for the use of scientific age testing of children have come into force on 10 January 2024. A reminder of the response from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health to these proposals: Evidence shows that using x-rays to determine age can...
The two statutory instruments that will pave the way for the use of x-rays and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of children’s bones and teeth for the purpose of immigration control are on track to be approved by Parliament. This is despite concerns being raised around the inability for children...
The House of Lords’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has published a report criticising the Home Office on two fronts. This is in relation to Draft Immigration (Age Assessments) Regulations 2023 and linked Draft Justification Decision (Scientific Age Imaging) Regulations 2023, and the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations...
The impact of age assessment decisions on unaccompanied asylum seeking children coming to the UK is huge. As we explored in this earlier article, an age assessment decision will affect a young person’s entitlement to social work support and care. It will also have implications on how their asylum claim...
In what seems to be a prelude to the introduction of the use of ionising radiation (x-rays) for non-medical reasons on children, the government has published the Justification Decision (Scientific Age Imaging) Regulations 2023. There is also a draft explanatory memorandum containing a statement by the Secretary of State for...
The majority of unaccompanied children who enter the UK to seek asylum do not bring with them evidence of their age. Because of this, the Home Office has a duty to carry out an initial assessment of their age to establish whether they are, or could be, children. The Home...
Yesterday, the interim Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee report on the evaluation methods used to assist in assessing the age of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children was published. In October 2021, Priti Patel threatened to use x-rays to verify age. The report says that using X-rays to check age could put them...
The Upper Tribunal has issued guidance on the use of material from an applicant’s social media accounts in age assessment proceedings in R (BG) v LB Hackney [2022] UKUT 00338 (IAC). The brief facts The standard directions made by the Upper Tribunal in age assessment proceedings required the asylum seeker...
The European Court of Human Rights has handed down a significant judgment concerning the age-assessment process and rights of child asylum seekers. In Darboe and Camara v Italy (Application no. 5797/17), the court found that the Italian government had breached Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human...
In R (SB (a child)) v Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea [2022] EWHC 308 (Admin) the High Court held that an interview conducted by social workers as part of a short-form age assessment was “clearly unfair”. This was because of the combination of there having been no interpreter, no...
On 7 February 2022 the Home Office updated Detention Services Order 02/2019 on Care and management of Post Detention Age claims. This policy sets out the approach to age dispute cases in immigration detention and applies to Home Office staff and its contractors. The last version of the policy (dated...
The Supreme Court has upheld the policy of treating asylum seekers who claim to be children as adults if two Home Office officials think that the person looks significantly over 18. The case is R (BF (Eritrea)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 38. It should be...
We round off our coverage of the Nationality and Borders Bill, the second reading of which continues today, with Part 5. This consists of eight “miscellaneous” clauses. Four of them are what the House of Commons Library describes as “placeholder” clauses which will be fleshed out by government amendment as...
A Palestinian refugee threatening to take his own life in a dispute over the age recorded on his residence permit has lost a judicial review at the Court of Appeal. The case is (WA (Palestinian Territories)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 12. Background The...
Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children often get short term leave to remain in the UK for only 30 months or until they turn 17-and-a-half, whichever is the shorter period of time. While they may get extensions at the end of such periods often they simply get removed from the country. Thus, age...
It’s not often these days that we see a positive result from the Court of Appeal, but just before the bank holiday two out of three Lord Justices declared that Home Office policy on assessing the age of asylum seekers is unlawful. The case is BF (Eritrea) v Secretary of...
Upper Tribunal Judge Rintoul’s elegant, succinct summary of the law on age assessment, with which he opens the determination in R (AS) v Kent County Council (age assessment; dental evidence) [2017] UKUT 446, reminds us that pinpointing the age of a young person claiming asylum, other than where there is...
In Bedford County Council v GE (Eritrea) [2017] EWCA Civ 1521 the Court of Appeal refused to overturn an age assessment simply because the local authority disagreed with judicial findings of fact. The judgment upheld the Administrative Court’s decision that GE was born on 27 September 1994, making her 16...
In a new case on dental age assessments, the tribunal has ordered that a young asylum seeker to undergo a dental x-ray and age assessment. If he refuses, his court case will be struck out. The case also gives general guidance on the correct approach to be followed in similar...
Interesting and controversial case on X-rays and age assessment from the Court of Appeal: London Borough of Croydon v Y [2016] EWCA Civ 398 (26 April 2016). Essentially, the Court holds that the claimant would have to agree to an age assessment by means of a dental X-ray in order...
New guidance on conducting age assessments has been published by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. The work has been done in co-operation with the Home Office and the new guidelines will be of critical importance in age assessment disputes. Some background from the ADCS website:
...R (on the application of GB by litigation friend, Francesco Jeff) v Oxfordshire County Council (age dispute- relevance of documents) IJR [2015] UKUT 429 (IAC) is an interesting and successful judicial review challenge to an age assessment. My colleague Shu Shin Luh was Counsel, instructed by Scott-Moncrieff & Associates. The official headnote reads: The duty of...
