A test case judgment has been handed down in the high court preventing the Home Office from detaining child asylum seekers just because officials think they look 18 or older.
According to current Home Office policy, an asylum seeker who tells the Home Office they are a child can be locked up in an adult immigration centre if the official processing their case believes they are 18 or over.
A group of lawyers launched a legal challenge against the policy saying it was unlawful, estimating 100 children had been wrongly detained as adults.
The case, known as AA v the Secretary of State for the Home Department and heard by Mr Justice Silber, related to a 16-year-old asylum seeker who fled persecution in Sudan and was detained by the Home Office for 13 days from February last year.
On Monday, the court found in favour of the child known as AA, concluding that for the purposes of immigration detention the age of an individual is a matter of “‘objective fact’ and cannot be based on physical appearance or demeanour”.
Under current rules, local authorities that provide support to child asylum seekers must conduct a full age assessment before making a decision about whether or not to support someone who says they are a child.
But until Monday’s ruling, different rules applied to the Home Office.
Stuart Luke, the head of public law and community care at Bhatia Best Solicitors, said: “Since 2013 when the Home Office introduced these rules about age assessment I have seen an increase in these cases. Today’s landmark judgment is very important because it protects the rights of unaccompanied asylum seeker children who come to the UK.”
The Home Office has been granted permission to appeal against the ruling.
