A Tunisian national, claiming to be a minor, entered Italy without an identification document. On that basis, the Police Headquarters of Trapani issued an expulsion order and ordered his detention at the Repatriation Detention Centre (CPR) of Caltanissetta. The Justice of the Peace of Caltanissetta, without consulting the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Juvenile Court, ordered that the applicant undergo an age-assessment X-ray examination to determine whether he was a minor. Relying solely on the outcome of that examination, which revealed that he was an adult, the Justice of the Peace validated the detention order. The applicant subsequently lodged an appeal against that decision.

With the first ground of appeal, the applicant argued that, despite the existence of a well-founded doubt as to his age, none of the authorities involved applied the specific procedure set out in Article 19-bis of Legislative Decree no. 142/2015 for the identification of an unaccompanied minor. He contended that the Justice of the Peace unlawfully validated his detention by ordering an age-assessment X-ray, notwithstanding that the law confers exclusive authority for such assessments on the Juvenile Prosecutor and the Juvenile Court and requires the minor’s informed consent in the presence of a cultural mediator and a guardian. With the second ground of appeal, the applicant complained of the nullity of the decision, arising from the nullity or non-existence of the age assessment carried out by an authority lacking the requisite competence and in violation of the procedure laid down in Article 19-bis of Legislative Decree no. 142/2015. He further argued that the decision was vitiated by apparent and irrational reasoning, since his detention had been validated exclusively on the basis of an age-assessment X-ray indicating that his bone age was “compatible with an anagraphic age over 18 years.”

The Court of Cassation held that both grounds of appeal were well founded. It clarified that the Justice of the Peace lacked the competence to order a radiological examination or any other form of age assessment, and that the procedure provided for by Article 19-bis of Legislative Decree no. 142/2015 should have been followed. Under that provision, the age of an unaccompanied foreign minor must be determined through a graduated procedure involving the competent public authorities and, only where necessary, socio-medical examinations ordered exclusively by the Juvenile Prosecutor, with any remaining doubt resolved in favour of minority and all proceedings treating the individual as an adult suspended pending a final decision by the Juvenile Court.

The court reiterated its settled case law according to which unaccompanied minors must be identified exclusively in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 19-bis of Legislative Decree no. 142 of 2015, as introduced by Law no. 47 of 2017, thereby excluding the applicability of other lower-ranking provisions. It further affirmed that the measure by which the Juvenile Court attributes age to a minor is not only instrumental to the adoption of the protective measures provided for that category of minors, but also produces effects in other branches of the legal system, including administrative and criminal proceedings, in which age constitutes the decisive criterion for the application of a regime different from the ordinary one.

Conclusively, the court found that none of the safeguard procedures provided for by the primary legislation had been complied with, since the applicant had been subjected to a summary radiological examination ordered by the Justice of the Peace himself, on the basis of which the detention was subsequently validated. For these reasons, the court quashed the contested measure.