CYIL vol. 15 (2024)

LENKA SCHEU, ANŽELIKA BANEVIČIENĖ established. In the event of reasonable doubt that an unaccompanied foreigner is a minor, the police are entitled to initiate actions to determine the age of the unaccompanied foreigner without delay after their detention. In Lithuania, the practice on this issue is different. The police do not work with irregular migrants. Irrespective of who found and where the migrant was found in the territory of Lithuania, the migrant is transferred to the State Border Guard Service, which deals with the issue of accommodation of irregular migrants. If the migrant claims to be an unaccompanied child and there is a reasonable doubt whether they are a minor, the State Border Guard Service and Migration Department under the Ministry of Interior organises the age assessment of that irregular migrant. Until the migrant’s age is determined, the person is considered a minor and is treated as a minor. Such a person is accommodated in a place designated for the accommodation of minors. 4. Lithuanian and Czech courts’ practice on age assessment The court practice in both countries shows that issues of age determination mostly arose in cases when migrants challenged decisions on the refusal to grant asylum or subsidiary protection, orders on detention, or orders on alternative measures to detention – accommodation in a designated place without the right to leave the territory belonging to the place of accommodation. The case law of the Czech Republic 46 indicates that state authority must establish the foreigner’s age, and the foreigner cannot be held responsible for failing to prove their age. Lithuanian courts did not provide clear explanations on this issue. In Lithuania, the expert’s conclusion, 47 and in the Czech Republic, a medical examination 48 was the determining factor in deciding the migrant’s age. Lithuanian court decisions show that the expert chooses to talk about a person’s biological age, considering only skeletal biological age indicators seen in X-rays of the wrists and chest. 49 Other factors, except experts’ opinions about X-ray examination results, are irrelevant for Lithuanian courts. In the Czech Republic, the Supreme Administrative Court supported medical examinations as evidence of a foreigner’s age even though the Aliens Residence Act does not provide for any procedure for determining age. However, the court also expressed doubts about the accuracy of the examining method and concluded that it must be a prompt procedure, which may also include a medical examination, but which, depending on the method used, cannot exclude a certain degree of error or deviation; therefore, depending on the circumstances, it may also be appropriate to combine it with a psychosocial assessment of the alien concerned on the basis of an interview with a social worker or psychologist. 50

46 Judgment Supreme Administrative Court of 26 September 2019, Case No 7 Azs 87/2019-22. 47 Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania, Administrative Case No. eA-1704-552/2022, 23 March 2022. 48 Judgment Supreme Administrative Court of 26. September 2019, Case No. 7 Azs 87/2019-22. 49 Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania, Administrative Case No. eA-1704-552/2022, 23 March 2022. 50 Supreme Administrative Court, judgment of 25 June 2020, No. 5 Azs 107/2020-46.

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