Medicinska åldersbedömningar i asylprocessen - Rättssäkert?

Sammanfattning: In 2015, more than 35 000 unaccompanied children came to Sweden to seek asylum and only 12 % of them submitted some form of written document, for example an identity card, to confirm their identity. Due to the predicted high levels of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, the Swedish Government decided on 19 May 2016 to instruct National Board of Forensic Medicine to begin implementing medical age assessments on the basis of current research and proven experience. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the medical age assessments of asylum-seeking children using the legal dogmatic and legal sociological methods to link the various aspects of the medical age assessments to principles of legal certainty. Asylum seekers have the opportunity to use a medical age assessments to fulfill their burden of proof. The age of an asylum seeker is important for the substantive examination of the case and for the treatment of the asylum seeker during the dealing of the case. The National Board of Forensic Medicine conducts two examinations, one X-ray examination of the wisdom teeth and one magnetic camera examination of the lower part of the femur. Thereafter, on the basis of these examinations, the National Board of Forensic Medicine makes a medical age assessment. As there is no clear definition of legal certainty the essay bases its definition on that of the Swedish Bar Association, and includes protection against the exercise of public power, and the principles of predictability, legality, objectivity, the right to a judicial review, decision-making within the reasonable time and public access to official records. This essay finds that medical age assessments meet the criteria for legal certainty in some extent, but that there are deficiencies regarding objectivity and predictability.