After more than four years of litigation, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned France this Thursday, January 16, 2025 in a case of welcoming an isolated foreign minor.
In its judgment, the ECHR considers that the normal procedure was not respected and condemns France to pay a young Guinean who arrived in France in January 2020, 5,000 euros for “moral damage”, after his exclusion from a protection system. social assistance for children (ASE) in Haute-Vienne.
“Gaps” in the processing of the file
This Guinean national, who arrived 5 years ago on French territory without a civil status document, claimed to be 15 years old. He had been “taken into temporary care by the Haute-Vienne child welfare service”, reports the Strasbourg court in its judgment.
A medical examination had established “without absolute certainty” that the physiological age of this Guinean was over 18 years old. The Department of Haute-Vienne then put an end to temporary emergency reception.
The appeals subsequently filed by the young man to contest this decision, before the children's judge, the Limoges administrative court and the Council of State, were all rejected.
-Seized of the case, the judges of the ECHR considered that France had “violated article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights”, which guarantees respect for private life, due to several “gaps” in the processing of his file.
According to her, the administration did not communicate to the person concerned the report on the assessment of his age and the rejection of the educational assistance measures was not motivated by the public prosecutor. “The presumption of minority from which he benefited was overturned in concrete conditions which deprived him of sufficient procedural guarantees”, estimate the judges of the ECHR based in Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) and responsible for enforcing the European Convention on Rights. of man in the 46 member countries of the Council of Europe.
An alert launched last April
In a report, delivered in April 2024, Claire Hédon, the Defender of Rights, denounced the conditions of reception of foreign minors in Haute-Vienne. She also questioned the Minister of Justice and the Minister for Children at the time. The decision of the Defender of Rights revealed that “the refusal of emergency temporary reception opposed to people considered to be “obviously adults” […] is not respectful of their right to effective recourse.”
