Council unlawfully refused to reconsider Afghan asylum seeker’s age
The High Court has quashed a decision by Derby City Council refusing to reconsider the age of a putative Afghan child following judicial review proceedings.
The Claimant, who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power and whose identity has been anonymised to protect him, told officials on arriving in the UK that he was 17 years old. He presented a photograph of his Afghan identity document, or ‘Taskira’, which confirms that he was registered as a child in Afghanistan. The local authority nevertheless decided that he was ‘clearly an adult’ based solely on his physical appearance and demeanour. The Claimant was subsequently able to contact relatives in Afghanistan and obtain the original of his Taskira. His solicitors proceeded to obtain further evidence to verify that the Claimant was registered under that Taskira at the local district registry in Afghanistan and an expert report from Afghan country expert and forensic document examiner Dr Jawad Zadeh confirming that in his opinion the Taskira was a genuine document issued by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. When presented with this new evidence, the Council still refused to reconsider its decision on age, on the basis that they were “not entirely clear” as to Dr Zadeh’s qualifications and methodology.
The matter was listed for a judicial reviewing hearing in the Administrative Court in Birmingham before His Honour Judge Rawlings sitting as a High Court judge on 3 March 2026. In a judgment given orally on 4 March 2026, HHJ Rawlings quashed the Defendant’s refusal to re-assess the Claimant’s age and ordered the Defendant to make a new decision within 14 days. He found that in making the decision the Council had addressed its mind to the ‘wrong question’. Rather than asking whether on the new evidence, taken together with the existing, a significantly different conclusion might be reached and that the child or young person may be notably older or younger than initially assessed, in accordance with the Association of Directors of Children’s Services guidance, the Council had asked itself whether it was ‘persuaded’ that the opinion of Dr Zadeh ‘compelled’ it to revisit its assessment of the Claimant’s age. As a result, the Defendant had not grappled with the question of whether the Taskira might in fact be genuine and the implications for the Claimant’s age if it was.
The Claimant was represented by Bhatia Best Solicitors and Michael Spencer of Doughty Street Chambers.
