The Court of Appeal rejects individual’s reasoning challenge in age assessment appeal
Housing, Public Law and Judicial Review
The Court of Appeal today (18 Feb) handed down judgment in the age assessment appeal of R (AI) v West Berkshire Council [2025] EWCA Civ 136.
The appeal was from an order of Upper Tribunal Judge Blundell that declared AI, a refugee from the Sudan who arrived in the United Kingdom in October 2021, to be an adult at the time of his assessment of age by West Berkshire Council (“the Council”) concluding in December 2021 with an allocated date of birth of 20 April 1998.
The sole ground of appeal was with regard to an alleged inadequacy of reasons for such an order. As Lord Justice Singh, in giving the lead judgment, noted at §19 of the same:
“The crux of his submission is that the Judge was not limited to the two propositions put forward by the Appellant and the Respondent, and that separate reasons had to be given for accepting the date of birth assigned to the Appellant by the Home Office and accepted by the Respondent, because it was for the Judge to decide the Appellant’s date of birth for himself. Mr Gardner argues that, even if the Judge gave adequate reasons for concluding that the Appellant was an adult when he entered the UK, he gave no reasons for finding that he was born on 20 April 1998.”
It was confirmed, at §24 of the judgment, that it was “only if the court has determined that a claimant was a child on the relevant date that it was necessary to go on to consider their date of birth”.
Lord Justice Singh concluded, at §43, that “the reasons given by the UT in its judgment were sufficiently adequate and the only ground of appeal must fail”. In particular:
- He accepted the Council’s submission that whilst the “gravamen” of the Judge’s reasoning was at §§107-110 of the original judgment, that had to be read in the context of the whole of the analysis section starting at §65.
- There was no challenge to the order below other than adequacy of reasons: §34.
- The question of reasoning is fact- and context-specific: §35.
- “Although in principle it is open to a tribunal in age assessment cases to find some different date, not least because its task is inquisitorial rather than adversarial, there is no duty upon it to do so. Everything will depend on the particular circumstances of the case and what are in truth the material issues before the tribunal in a particular case.”: §39.
Click here for a copy of the Approved Judgment.
Andrew Lane was instructed by West Berkshire Council Legal Services both in the Upper Tribunal (Immigration & Asylum Chamber) and Court of Appeal.
