A., an Algerian national, applied for international protection in Switzerland on 16 May 2025, claiming to be born in 2007. Eurodac data showed two prior international protection applications in the Netherlands, on 9 November 2023 and 24 January 2024. On 18 June 2025, the applicant was interviewed as an unaccompanied minor asylum seeker. During the interview, he presented a photograph of an “Unaccompanied Minors Access Card” issued by the French authorities mentioning 2007 as his date of birth. The applicant was heard on the jurisdiction of the Netherlands and France to process his asylum application. On 23 June 2025, the Dutch authorities accepted the State Secretariat for Migration’s (SEM) transfer request under Article 18(1)(b) of the Dublin III Regulation, attaching in their reply photographs of an Algerian identity card and passport in the name of B, born in 1998, which the applicant had produced during his first asylum application. The French authorities also reported through the Schengen Information System (SIS) that the applicant had submitted a document with a date of birth set at 2005. On 25 July 2025, after hearing the applicant, the SEM ordered the modification of his date of birth to January 2007, with a note of its disputed nature, thus considering him an adult. This decision was appealed on 28 August 2025. On 8 September 2025, the SEM ordered his transfer to the Netherlands under Article 31a(1)(b) of the Asylum Act and Article 18(1)(b) of the Dublin III Regulation. The applicant appealed to the Federal Administrative Court on 15 September 2025, contesting both the age determination and the transfer, arguing that he was a minor and that Switzerland should assume responsibility for his claim. He also requested super-provisional measures and the granting of suspensive effect. On 16 September 2025, the transfer of the applicant was suspended as a super-provisional measure.

The Federal Administrative Court noted that the case raised two distinct legal issues: the applicant’s age determination and the resulting allocation of responsibility under the Dublin III Regulation. It recalled that the SEM may determine age provisionally under Article 17(3bis) of the Asylum Act, but such findings are subject to judicial review. Citing the CJEU case law in MA, BT, DA v Secretary of State for the Home Department (6 June 2013), it also recalled that Article 8(4) of the Dublin III Regulation provides that  in the case of an unaccompanied minor who has no family members legally present in the territory of a Member State and who has lodged asylum applications in more than one Member State, the Member State responsible is the one in which the minor is present after having lodged an application for asylum there.  

Regarding the assessment of evidence, the court observed that while the Netherlands had provided photographs of identity documents showing a 1998 birth year, their probative value was limited because they were digital copies which could be easily manipulated. The applicant’s explanation that he had deliberately used false documents in order to be able to travel freely as an adult was deemed plausible by the court. His oral statements during his minor hearing were coherent, and the court considered that the schooling and family chronology presented by the applicant were consistent with a 2007 birth date. His account of attending school from 2013 to 2022 and leaving Algeria at 16 was deemed internally logical by the court. In any case, the Federal Administrative Court further held that given his proximity with majority age, the use of forensic medical examination would not be useful in the case of the applicant. Thus, the court concluded that the applicant had succeeded in making his minority plausible at the time of filing his asylum application in Switzerland.  

In conclusion, the Federal Administrative Court upheld the appeal, annulled the SEM’s contested decision and referred the case back to it for substantive asylum examination, holding that since the applicant had succeeded in demonstrating his minority, Switzerland was responsible for processing his asylum application under Article 8(4) of Dublin III Regulation.