Court of Appeal dismisses appeal over reasoning given by Upper Tribunal in age assessment case

The Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal by a Sudanese national that the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) failed to give adequate reasons for accepting an age assessment made by West Berkshire Council.

The local authority’s assessment had adopted the date of birth (20 April 1998) assigned to the appellant, AI, by the Home Office on his arrival in the UK in October 2021.

Before the Upper Tribunal the appellant contended that his true date of birth was 4 August 2004, and that he should therefore have been treated as a child at the relevant time.

The reason why this was an issue that concerned the respondent council was that it was the relevant local authority which would have owed certain duties to AI if he was a child when he was referred to it, Lord Justice Singh said.

By an order sealed on 8 January 2024, Upper Tribunal Judge Blundell refused AI's claim for judicial review and made a declaration that the appellant "was, at the time of the Respondent's assessment of him, and, is an adult, with an allocated date of birth of 20th April 1998."

It was submitted by AI’s counsel, David Gardner, that while the judge gave detailed reasons for finding against the credibility of the appellant's evidence, he gave no adequate reasons for accepting the council's case as to his age.

“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 the Judge decided the Appellant's date of birth for himself and made a declaration accordingly,” Lord Justice Singh said.

“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.”

Lord Justice Singh highlighted that the only ground of appeal in this case was that the reasons given by the Upper Tribunal were inadequate.

“This is not a case where, for example, it is contended that the UT either misdirected itself in law or reached a finding which was not reasonably open to it on the evidence,” the Court of Appeal judge said.

He added: “It is also important to appreciate that the question whether reasons for a judgment are adequate is inevitably fact-specific and depends on the particular circumstances, including the state of knowledge of the parties. This follows from the underlying rationales for why the law imposes a duty to give reasons on a judge, which I have set out above by reference to the main authorities, Flannery and English. It is not an abstract exercise. The essential function of the duty to give reasons is to enable the losing party to know why they have lost and, if the case goes on appeal, to enable the appellate court to understand why they lost.”

Lord Justice Singh also said it was important to appreciate that the judgment of the Upper Tribunal “must be read fairly and as a whole, not focussing on one or two passages out of context”.

The Court of Appeal judge noted that the thrust of the appellant's submission was that there were two questions of fact which the judge was required to decide: “first, whether the Appellant was an adult at the relevant time and, secondly, what was his actual date of birth”.

In truth, however, in the particular circumstances of this case, there was no material distinction between those two questions, Lord Justice Singh said.

The Court of Appeal judge said: “It is clear from the way in which the case was presented to the UT that there was a binary issue presented to it, namely whether the age asserted by the Appellant should be accepted or whether it should be that attributed by the Home Office and adopted by the Respondent.

“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.”

Lord Justice Singh said this helped to explain why Upper Tribunal Judge Blundell concentrated as much as he did, in his analysis of the evidence, on the question whether the appellant was to be relied upon as a credible witness, in particular in relation to the question of his age.

“The Judge was well aware, and correctly directed himself, that witnesses may lie for a variety of reasons and are not necessarily therefore lying on the crucial issue of fact which needs to be determined, but the reality of this case was that the Appellant had lied to the UT in respect of the crucial issue of his date of birth: see in particular para 109 of the judgment, which I have quoted above but which bears repetition on this point:

"Whilst I bear in mind young people might lie for reasons unrelated to their age, I come to the clear conclusion that that is not the case here. … I consider that the applicant has deliberately sought to mislead in relation to his age and other matters which shed light on that question."”

Lord Justice Singh said the fact that the material issue in this case was presented to the Upper Tribunal in a binary way was also clear from the underlying claim for judicial review and witness submissions before the Upper Tribunal.

The Court of Appeal said there was one other aspect of the case which he should address.

“Although it is correct, as Mr Gardner has emphasised, that the UT found that there were a number of respects in which the assessment conducted by the Respondent was unsatisfactory, there was at least one important factor which had not been available to the Respondent at the time of its assessment and which tended to support its assessment. This is the finding of fact made by the UT (which is unchallenged on this appeal) that the Appellant had been to school in Sudan: see in particular para 76 of the judgment. This not only meant that the Appellant was better educated than he had claimed to be but it would inevitably add a number of years to his age, a fact that would not have been known to the Respondent when it conducted its assessment of his age.”

Lord Justice Singh said: “Overall, therefore, in the particular circumstances of this case, I have reached the conclusion that the reasons given by the UT in its judgment were sufficiently adequate and the only ground of appeal must fail.”

Lord Justice Arnold and Lady Justice King agreed.

Andrew Lane of Cornerstone Barristers appeared for the council.