According to the press release of ECHR:

"The applicant is a Rwandan national who was born in 1950 and lives in Rouen (France). The applicant obtained refugee status and submitted applications for family reunion in March 2003 to be able to live with their children, who were then in Kenya. Although the principle of family reunification had been recognized in the case, the consular authorities refused to issue visas for his children on account of difficulties in establishing the children’s civil registration status. Mr Mugenzi received this refusal on 31 August 2005. As the procedure for family reunification concerned only children aged under nineteen years, the French Embassy in Nairobi ordered that a medical examination be carried out on his sons – apparently consisting in an examination of the mouth cavity – with a view to determining their age. After those examinations, the consular authorities concluded that there was a discrepancy between their physiological age and the age mentioned on the children’s birth certificates; this was the ground for refusing to issue visas. Mr Mugenzi applied to the Appeals Board against decisions refusing entry visas to France (“the Appeals Board”), arguing in particular that the civil registration documents submitted in support of the visa applications were those which had been submitted to OFPRA (the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons) in the course of his request for asylum, and were the only documents that he had been able to take with him when fleeing, and that his sons risked persecution were they to return to Rwanda. Although the Appeals Board issued a favourable decision in February 2007, he received another refusal to issue the visas, on the same ground. After applying to the Conseil d’État in April 2007 requesting that this decision be quashed, and emphasising in particular that one of his sons was suffering from health problems as a result of the trauma experienced in Rwanda, Mr Mugenzi lodged an urgent application with that court in January 2008, repeating that his children were unaccompanied and that his son Lambert was suffering major psychological after-effects. On 5 February 2008 the urgent applications judge held that the “criterion of urgency” had not been met, since the two children were, or soon would be, adults. He indicated that the appeal on the merits would be examined rapidly. On 23 March 2009 the Conseil d’État gave judgment against the applicant. The applicant relying in particular on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life), alleged that the refusal by the consular authorities to issue visas to their children for the purpose of family reunification had infringed their right to respect for their family life."