Age Re-Assessment Ordered by High Court

Rahul Kanani

‘Illogical’ and ‘unlawful’: High Court rules in favour of unaccompanied asylum-seeker against Local Authority

On 16 April 2025, His Honour Judge Dight CBE handed down judgment in the case of MIA v Dorset Council [2025] EWHC 970 AC-2024-LON-002655, in favour of the Claimant (MIA) against the Defendant Local Authority (Dorset Council).

The case concerned a Judicial Review challenge against Dorset Council, for their failure to undertake a re-assessment of our client’s age, despite the presentation of new evidence.

The background

MIA arrived in the United Kingdom (UK) on 15 June 2023 as an unaccompanied asylum-seeker from Afghanistan.

Following an assessment by the Home Office, he was ascribed the age of 16 and the date of birth of 1 January 2007 (commensurate with his claimed age).

MIA was initially accommodated in a hotel in or around Coventry before being taken to Home Office accommodation. Following a referral, MIA was accommodated in a residential unit for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Kent, where he was treated as a looked-after child pursuant to Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 (again, commensurate with his claimed age).

On 15 August 2023, MIA was transferred under the National Transfer Scheme for asylum seekers to Dorset social services, where he continued to receive support in accordance with his claimed age. However, in October 2023, following an adverse age assessment, the Defendant Local Authority decided that MIA was not eligible for Children Services, therefore he was discharged from their care and moved to adult asylum accommodation.

We were instructed to assist MIA on 12 February 2024 (by which time MIA was out of time to challenge the original decision in the age assessment). However, following the adverse age assessment, MIA obtained a copy of his Tazkira. We assisted MIA to request a re-assessment of his age.

We engaged in extensive pre-action correspondence to try and resolve matters as quickly as possible. In total, we sent two detailed letters and a letter before claim to the Defendant to consider. During pre-action litigation, we responded to the adverse points that formed the basis of the Defendant’s original assessment. We also obtained and disclosed records provided by Kent County Council which included supportive observations from relevant professionals and a Child and Family Assessment undertaken by a social worker (which contradicted the Defendant’s assessment). Additionally, we instructed two experts (Dr Zadeh and Dr Giustozzi) to verify the authenticity of the scanned copy of the Tazkira issued to MIA. Both experts assessed the authenticity of the Tazkira and using different, but complementary methodologies, verified it as a genuine document. Furthermore, we commissioned an addendum report from Dr Zadeh in response to concerns raised by the Defendant regarding the reliability of the process of obtaining a Tazkira in Afghanistan. However, the Defendant continued to refuse to undertake a re-assessment.

On 10 July 2024, following negative responses to our detailed letters and a brief response to our letter before claim which did not address any of our points in substantial detail, we issued a Judicial Review claim against two refusal decisions.

Key Submissions

Claimant

In summary, we argued that it was unlawful for the Defendant to refuse to re-assess the Claimant’s age after a copy of his Tazkira was provided to the Defendant, along with reports from two experts confirming the authenticity of the Tazkira. We contended that the refusal was unlawful because the Defendant misapplied the re-assessment test, failed to ask the correct questions, departed from established case law, and failed to follow applicable guidance without a good reason. In any event the decisions were irrational. We submitted that such decisions were in breach of the ADCS guidance and were ones which no reasonable authority could reach on the evidence before the decision-maker.

Defendant

The Defendant did not challenge the genuineness of the tazkira but stated that the information contained in or on the Tazkira could not be shown to have been complied in an appropriate way, and the document was therefore not a reliable piece of evidence regarding the true age of the Claimant. In addition, the Defendant argued that there was no statutory obligation on any authority to carry out a re-assessment of a person’s age. Alternatively, they submitted that they had considered the new information and maintained that it was not irrational to take the view that the new information was not enough to cause doubt about the original age assessment or to believe that it might lead to a significantly different conclusion.

Conclusion

The Judge ruled in the Claimant’s favour and issued a mandatory order requiring the Defendant to undertake a re-assessment of age.

In reaching his decision, the Judge noted that there was a ‘logical error or critical gap in the Defendant’s reasoning’ and accepted our submission that the ‘Defendant jumped from asking itself the correct question’. This was reiterated later in the judgment where it was noted that the decision letters showed an irrational process. Moreover, by refusing to re-assess the Claimant’s age, the Defendant asked itself the wrong question.

Additionally, the Judge commented that the Defendant’s stance on the request to re-assess the Claimant’s age after discovering the document seemed obviously illogical and led to an unreasonable outcome.

Key Takeaways

The judgment has wider implications in age dispute cases, both in factual challenges and against re-assessment refusal decisions and in relation to how local authorities deal with new evidence (particularly, Afghan identity documents).

1. ADCS guidance

‘In light of what I say in paragraphs 51, 53 and 54 the value of the guidance [ADCS] to local authorities in evaluating their decision making in connection with age assessments and re-assessments is obvious. It is a statement of almost universally recognised good practice in the area’.

The judgement reiterates the importance and value of the ADCS guidance as a tool and practical guidance to social workers to complete age assessments in a child-friendly way, and outlines the approach and steps that should be taken if new information comes to light after an initial age assessment.

2. Recollection of past events

‘As I suggested to counsel during the course of the hearing, if one equates the process of a parent obtaining a Tazkira for a child in Afghanistan with a parent obtaining a passport for a child in the UK, it would not be unusual for the child or even a younger teenager, not to recall the event and process, including the taking of the photograph used’.

As recognised in ADCS guidance (page 8), ‘there is a significant body of research which casts doubt on the accuracy of ‘normal’ memory, and most people have difficulties in accurately and repeatedly recalling some things in their lives. Children and young people are likely to find it even harder. Furthermore, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression are the most common psychiatric diagnoses in asylum seekers, and those illnesses impact on memory’.

Nevertheless, Osbornes Law is seeing a growing trend of multiple local authorities holding it against young people who are unable to recollect specific events such as the date or specific details when the identity document is issued to them, despite them being very young at the time. However, this judgement helpfully reiterates and reminds local authorities of the difficulties many young people experience in recalling past events.

3. Tazkira

‘Fact that the Defendant accepts that the tazkira is genuine and created on the date it bears, means that it is to be taken to have some evidential value. It is a form of evidence which is capable in theory of assisting in determining the age of the holder of the document. If issued by governments of other countries it would be readily be accepted as conclusive proof of the information which it contains’.

‘In any event the Tazkira shows that an official in Afghanistan had gone through a process which concluded that the claimant was born in 2007. That date, if correct, would result in the claimant being “notably…younger than initially assessed”, to use the words of the ADCS Guidance. There is little room for doubt that the document is therefore capable of supporting a “significantly different conclusion” as to age and therefore, in my judgment, “might” do so’.

As already established in case law, this judgement further reiterates that the Tazkira is compelling evidence of an individual’s age and ought to be conclusive (or at the very least, a document that has evidential value and should be afforded significant weight).

4. Re-Assessment Test

‘It should have asked whether it was possible to reach a different conclusion not whether the existing age assessment was wrong. The Defendant appears to have focused on whether the Tazkira was reliable and whether it correctly established the Claimant’s age rather than viewing it as a piece of evidence which might lead to a significantly different conclusion as to the Claimant’s age thereby triggering further enquiries and a new assessment’.

Osbornes Law is also noticing that Local Authorities and other relevant authorities are plainly misinterpreting the test for re-assessment. It is not about what the outcome would have been if the information had been available at the time of the original assessment, but rather, whether the new information presented might lead to a significant different outcome in the course of a re-assessment.

The application of the wrong test is not insignificant. In this case, it resulted in the Defendant applying a higher threshold, attempting to determine in retrospect what their decision would have been, rather than simply considering the test and leaving the re-assessment decision-making to assessors who would interview the Claimant (including carrying out a further minded-to) and discharge their Tameside duty in the usual way.

The above judgement re-emphasises the correct test and that a new assessment/re-assessment should be undertaken ‘when you believe that a significantly different conclusion might be reached and that the child or young person may be notably older or younger than initially assessed’ (page 31, ADCS guidance).

Legal Representation 

MIA was represented by Rahul Kanani of Osbornes Law with Agata Patyna of Doughty Street Chambers instructed as Counsel. Erinç Kayim of the Refugee Council’s Age Dispute Project acted as litigation friend.

With thanks to Edward Taylor of Osbornes Law who supervised Rahul Kanani and to both Imogen Proud of Monckton Chambers and Antonia Benfield of Doughty Street Chambers who assisted as instructed Counsel at different stages in these proceedings.

How we can help

At Osbornes, we are specialists in age assessment challenges and have significant experience in overturning negative age assessment decisions and issuing judicial reviews against local authorities and the Home Office. Please contact the Age Assessment team by:

• Filling in our online enquiry form; or
• Calling us on 020 7485 8811