CYIL vol. 15 (2024)

CYIL 15 ȍ2024Ȏ AGE ASSESSMENT OF UNACCOMPANIED MINORS IN ASYLUM LAW In 2016, the Czech Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs issued a Methodological Recommendation 24 for municipal authorities to provide social and legal protection to unaccompanied minors. According to point 3.2, the Police of the Czech Republic are obliged to summon a social-legal protection authority for children to the police station without undue delay after discovering that the foreigner they have detained is a minor. It is sufficient that the foreigner declares that they are a minor. In this case, the Police of the Czech Republic and other public authorities must assume this is the case until the contrary is proven. The only exception may be cases where it would be quite obvious that the claim in question cannot be based on the truth. Still, in this context, it should be emphasised that foreigners entering the Czech Republic without the relevant authorisation and coming from crisis areas may also be physically scarred (grey hair, etc.) as a result of the trauma they have experienced, despite their young age. Any exception to the general rule that the alien is a minor, unless the contrary is proven, should be applied in obvious cases where treating the alien as a minor would be likely to endanger other children with a qualified degree of probability, e.g., in the case of placing the alien in a residential facility for children pending verification of their age. It could be said that international law, EU law, and the national laws of EU countries, provide special provisions to protect unaccompanied children. Obligations embedded in international and EU law for child rights protection are mandatory, and member states like Czech Republic and Lithuania must obey and ensure the implementation of various measures by national law. Considering special treatment and the vulnerability of unaccompanied children, it is crucial to distinguish children from adults. The importance of this issue increases because various adult irregular migrants enter the EU without documents and claim to be under 18. Although it should be noted that opinions are heard that the focus on age 18 as an exclusionary point should be abandoned due to migrant young people with insecure legal status, particularly unaccompanied migrant youths, 25 the current legal regulation does not provide for this. Therefore, the analysis in this Article is based on the existing regulations. EU Directive and soft law Minimum requirements for age assessment are set out in EU directives. Article 25 of the Asylum Procedures Directive 26 allows medical examinations to determine the age of unaccompanied 27 minors in the context of their asylum application. The competent authorities may do so when they doubt the applicant’s age. The Directive does not specify what types of medical examinations are appropriate or proportionate, and various techniques 24 Methodological Recommendation No. 1/2016 of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of 23 August 2016. On the procedure of municipal authorities of municipalities with extended competence in providing social-legal protection to unaccompanied foreign minors. 25 PRABHAT, D., SINGLETON, A., EYLES, R. Age is Just a Number? Supporting Migrant Young People with Precarious Legal Status in the UK, International Journal of Children’s Rights , 27 (2019) 228–250. 26 Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection. 27 The term “unaccompanied minors” is used, according to Article 2(l) of the Qualification Directive, to refer to persons under the age of 18 who enter European territory without an adult responsible for them in the receiving country. 3. EU and national laws on age assessment

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