Norway said that five young asylum seekers were over 18 years old, even though they believed they were under 18. The state lost in Oslo District Court in November, but has now appealed.
‘The Immigration Commission (UNE) protests because we have a different view of what is the correct law and the right result,’ said Ingun Marie Halle, Head of Division at UNE to NRK news.
UNE announced the appeal immediately when the verdict was completed in late November last year, but it wasn’t delivered until January.
The Afghani youth’s lawyer, Jostein Løken, said the appeal was as expected,and that it is obvious that the state considers the verdict as a principle.
The five male Afghani asylum seekers sued the state and UNE for the use of age testing in their asylum assessment, which resulted in a ‘no’ to their asylum applications. The state lost the case completely.
‘The court concluded that the Immigration Appointment’s decisions in all five cases were based on improper use of law, the wrong facts, and false assessments of evidence. Age surveys had been obtained without the legal basis for these.
The concrete age assessments in all five cases were inaccurate,’ said the Oslo District Court’s assessment in late November.
The five Afghani citizens came to Norway individually between the 26th of July and
1st of October 2015. All said on arrival that they were 15 or 16 years old. In the autumn of 2015, a medical age survey was carried out by the immigration authorities, who concluded that four of them were over 18 years of age, and one was over 17 years old.
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today
