Judgment A.C. v. France - reception of unaccompanied minors

issued by the Registrar of the Court   ECHR 016 (2025)   16.01.2025   Reception of unaccompanied minors   The Court found that the French legal framework in principle afforded the requisite   minimum procedural safeguards and effective remedies but that, in the present case, there   had been a violation of Article 8 where the national authorities had rebutted the   presumption of minority in respect of the applicant in such conditions as to deprive him of   adequate procedural safeguards   In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case of A.C. v. France (application no. 15457/20) the European   Court of Human Rights held:   by 6 votes to 1, that there had been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private life) of the   European Convention on Human Rights; and   unanimously, that there had been no violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) in   conjunction with Article 8.   The case concerned a Guinean national who claimed to have been an unaccompanied minor when   he arrived in France. He submitted that he had not received the care provided for under French   child-protection laws, because the domestic authorities had contested that he was a minor.   The Court first observed that the applicant had been given temporary emergency care throughout   the age-assessment process, in line with the presumption of minority. The results of the   administrative and medical examinations had led the presumption of minority to be rebutted – and   the applicant’s protection as an unaccompanied minor to be terminated accordingly – before the   courts had finally recognised his minor status. The Court noted the existence of a domestic legal   framework which in principle afforded the requisite minimum procedural safeguards. It then   considered, however, that on account of the incomplete and imprecise information provided to the   applicant in the present case while his minor status was in dispute, the presumption of minority in   his respect had been rebutted in such conditions as to deprive him of adequate procedural   safeguards. It concluded that, in the circumstances of the case, the relevant authorities had not   acted with reasonable diligence and had not complied with their positive obligation to ensure the   applicant’s right to respect for his private life. There had therefore been a violation of Article 8 of the   Convention.   Second, the Court considered that there had been remedies available to the applicant under   domestic law in respect of the alleged violation of Article 8 of the Convention. In the light of the   circumstances of the case, he had to be regarded as having had effective remedies in practice. The   Court thus found that there had been no violation of Article 13 of the Convention in conjunction   with Article 8.   A legal summary of this case will be available in the Court’s database HUDOC (link).   1. Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month period following its delivery,   any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges   considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final   judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.   Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution.   Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution.   Principal facts   The applicant, A.C., is a Guinean national who claims to have been born on 26 April 2004 and lives in   Limoges.   A.C., whose mother died in 2018, left Guinea with his brother before being separated from him in   Morocco. On his arrival in France, he stated that he was an unaccompanied minor. He was   provisionally taken into care by the child welfare services of the département of Haute-Vienne on   23 January 2020.   In February 2020 a forensic medical examination commissioned by the public prosecutor found that   the applicant’s biological age was over 18 years, although no conclusion could be reached with   absolute certainty in the state of scientific knowledge at the time.   On 6 March 2020 the public prosecutor decided that care measures were no longer called for,   leading the President of the Haute-Vienne Département Council to terminate the temporary   emergency care on 9 March 2020. A.C. then left the hotel in which he had been living. According to   his submissions, he found himself with no resources, accommodation, contacts or food and had to   fend for himself.   On 25 March 2020 A.C. applied to the Youth Court, with the assistance of a lawyer, to be taken into   the care of child welfare services until he reached the age of majority. He also requested an interim   protection measure from that court. On the same day, he lodged an urgent application for the   protection of a fundamental freedom (référé liberté) with the Limoges Administrative Court. In   particular, he sought to have that court order the President of the Haute-Vienne Département   Council to take him provisionally into care and to provide for his accommodation, food, clothing and   medical needs if necessary, until the later of the Youth Court’s delivery of its decision or the lifting of   the public-health state of emergency. The urgent-applications judge of the Limoges Administrative   Court dismissed the application on 27 March 2020.   On 30 March 2020 the European Court, seized with a request for interim measures, indicated to the   French Government under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court that the applicant should be provided with   accommodation and food until the end of the lockdown.   A.C. appealed to the Conseil d’État against the decision of the Limoges Administrative Court urgent-   applications judge of 27 March 2020. The Conseil d’État held that it was unnecessary to decide the   appeal because the applicant was then in the care of State social services.   On 1 July 2020 the Limoges Youth Court found that the applicant’s minority could not be established   and decided that care measures were no longer called for. A.C. appealed against the judgment.   On 21 January 2021 the Limoges Court of Appeal overturned the judgment that care measures were   no longer called for. Finding that the applicant was in fact a minor, it ordered that he be taken into   the care of the Haute-Vienne Département Council until he reached the age of majority.   On 29 January 2021 the applicant applied to the urgent-applications judge of the Limoges   Administrative Court, asking for the département of Haute-Vienne to be ordered to pay him   25,000 euros in provisional compensation for the damage he had sustained as a result of the   decision of 9 March 2020. He then lodged an application with the Limoges Administrative Court on   2 June 2021, seeking to have the département of Haute-Vienne pay him the sum of 30,000 euros in   final compensation for the damage he had sustained as a result of that same decision.   On 9 December 2021 the Limoges Administrative Court joined the application for provisional   compensation and the application for final compensation with an application by the applicant to   have the decision of 9 March 2020 set aside. It then dismissed all the applications as inadmissible.   In an order of 2 June 2022 the Bordeaux Administrative Court of Appeal transferred an appeal by the   applicant against the judgment of 9 December 2021 to the Conseil d’État, on the ground that no   2 appeal lay against the first-instance judgment. The Conseil d’État declined to accept the appeal   under Article L. 822-1 of the Administrative Courts Code.   Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court   Relying on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) and on Article 13 (right to an   effective remedy) in conjunction with Article 3, the applicant complained, first, of his living   conditions while he was not in the care of the domestic authorities yet was still a minor and, second,   of the lack of an effective remedy available to him in respect of his grievances under Article 3 of the   Convention.   He also relied on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) to argue that the lack of   protection resulting from the domestic authorities’ refusal to recognise him as an unaccompanied   minor should be regarded as a violation of his right to respect for his private life.   Lastly, relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing) and on Article 13 in conjunction with Article 8,   he submitted that he had had no effective remedy in respect of the decision to refuse him care as a   child. That, he claimed, was notably owing to the lack of an avenue of redress with suspensive effect   and to the assessment of the evidence he had provided in support of his minor status.   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 30 March 2020.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   María Elósegui (Spain), President,   Mattias Guyomar (France),   Armen Harutyunyan (Armenia),   Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström (Monaco),   Gilberto Felici (San Marino),   Andreas Zünd (Switzerland),   Diana Sârcu (the Republic of Moldova),   and also Victor Soloveytchik, Section Registrar.   Decision of the Court   Article 3 and Article 13 in conjunction with Article 3   The Court pointed out that it required a sufficiently solid factual basis to find that the threshold of   severity under Article 3 of the Convention had been reached. It could not infer such a violation from   a probable sequence of events. While acknowledging the difficulties which the applicant had faced,   the Court considered, on the basis solely of the evidence adduced before it, that the threshold of   severity required to establish the existence of treatment in breach of Article 3 of the Convention   could not be regarded as attained.   Given that the complaint under Article 3 of the Convention could not be said to be arguable in the   present case, the Court concluded that the complaint under Article 13 in conjunction with Article 3   was incompatible with the provisions of the Convention. It therefore had to be rejected.   Article 8   The Court noted that the French legal framework in principle afforded unaccompanied foreign   minors procedural safeguards that satisfied the requirements of Article 8 of the Convention.   In the present case, since the applicant had not provided a civil-status document during the age-   assessment interview, the administrative authority had relied on a body of circumstantial evidence,   3 comprising the applicant’s answers and physical appearance. It had concluded that “it [could] not be   guaranteed that he [was] a minor”. In the absence of a decisive outcome, the public prosecutor had   requested that the applicant undergo a biological examination. The findings stated that the   applicant’s biological age was over 18 years, although no conclusion could be reached with certainty   based on the state of scientific knowledge at the time.   The Court observed that the applicant had been given temporary emergency care throughout the   age-assessment process, in line with the presumption of minority. The results of the administrative   and medical examinations had led the presumption of minority to be rebutted, and the applicant’s   protection as an unaccompanied minor to be terminated accordingly.   It did not appear from the documents in the case file, however, that the findings of the   administrative assessment had been given to the applicant by the département social services or   that he had been informed that he could obtain a copy.   The Court further noted that there was nothing to show that the applicant had actually received a   copy of the findings of the biological examination either. Moreover, as the domestic courts had   pointed out, those findings contained no mention of the margin of error inherent in such   examinations in the state of scientific knowledge at the time.   In addition, the public prosecutor’s decision of 6 March 2020 finding that care measures were no   longer called for did not contain any reasoning. The decision of the President of the Département   Council of 9 March 2020, for its part, merely referred schematically to the age assessment carried   out by the département social services, on the one hand, and to the public prosecutor’s decision of   6 March 2020, on the other. It did not provide any personalised reasoning that could have informed   the applicant as to why his minor status had been rebutted. Lastly, the decision of 9 March 2020   refusing care contained only incomplete and imprecise indications of the avenues and time-limits for   seeking redress. No mention was made of the possibility of applying to the Youth Court. Nor was   there anything stipulating that any action brought before the administrative courts would be   admissible only in the context of an urgent application for the protection of a fundamental freedom   (référé liberté).   This accumulation of incomplete and imprecise information was provided to the applicant while his   minor status was in dispute and he should have been regarded as particularly vulnerable for that   reason. The Court thus concluded that the presumption of minority in his respect had been rebutted   in such specific conditions as to deprive him of adequate procedural safeguards.   Despite the existence of a domestic legal framework which in principle afforded the requisite   minimum procedural safeguards, the relevant authorities had not acted with reasonable diligence   and had not complied with their positive obligation to ensure the applicant’s right to respect for his   private life.   There had therefore been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.   Article 13 in conjunction with Article 8   The Court considered that there had been remedies available to the applicant under domestic law in   respect of the alleged violation of Article 8 of the Convention. In the light of the circumstances of the   case, he had to be regarded as having had effective remedies in practice.   It thus found that there had been no violation of Article 13 of the Convention in conjunction with   Article 8.   4 Rule 39 of the Rules of Court   The Court noted that the interim measure indicated to the Government on 30 March 2020 under   Rule 39 of the Rules of Court had become devoid of purpose, given that the lockdown had been   lifted.   Just satisfaction (Article 41)   The Court held that France was to pay the applicant 5,000 euros in respect of non-pecuniary   damage.   Separate opinion   Judge Mourou-Vikström expressed a separate opinion, which is annexed to the judgment.   The judgment is available only in French.   This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court. Decisions,   judgments and further information about the Court can be found on www.echr.coe.int. 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