103. With more specific reference to minors, the Court has established that it is important to bear in mind that the child’s extreme vulnerability is the decisive factor and takes precedence over considerations relating to the status of illegal immigrant (see Mubilanzila Mayeka and Kaniki Mitunga, cited above, § 55, and Popov v. France, nos. 39472/07 and 39474/07, § 91, 19 January 2012). Children have specific needs that are related in particular to their age and lack of independence, but also to their asylum-seeker status. The Court has also observed that the Convention on the Rights of the Child encourages States to take appropriate measures to ensure that a child who is seeking to obtain refugee status enjoys protection and humanitarian assistance, whether the child is alone or accompanied by his or her parents (see to this effect Popov, cited above, § 91).

104. Accordingly, the reception conditions for children seeking asylum must be adapted to their age, to ensure that those conditions do not “create ... for them a situation of stress and anxiety, with particularly traumatic consequences” (see Tarakhel v. Switzerland [GC], no. 29217/12, § 99, ECHR 2014 (extracts)). Otherwise, the conditions in question would attain the threshold of severity required to come within the scope of the prohibition under Article 3 of the Convention (ibid.).

[…].

111. These concerns assume a new dimension in view of the fact that the applicants were minors at the time of their detention (as confirmed by the domestic procedures). While it is true that the applicants were not young children, they still fell within the international definition of minors, in respect of which detention should be a last resort and which should be limited to the shortest time possible. As mentioned above, under the Court’s case-law reception conditions for children seeking asylum must be adapted to their age. However no measures were taken to ensure that the applicants as minors received proper counselling and educational assistance from qualified personnel specially mandated for that purpose (see Mubilanzila Mayeka and Kaniki Mitunga, cited above, § 50). Nor were any entertainment facilities provided for persons of their age. Furthermore, the Court cannot ignore the applicants’ submissions to the effect that there was a tense and violent atmosphere, as also documented by reports (see paragraph 86 above). The lack of any support mechanism for the applicants, as minors, as well as the lack of information concerning their situation, must have exacerbated their fears.

[…].

113. The Court observes that in the applicants’ case the aforementioned conditions persisted for a period of around eight months, during which no specific arrangements were made for the applicants as migrants awaiting the outcome of their age-assessment procedure (whose status as minors was later confirmed). The Court reiterates that the applicants, as asylum-seekers, were particularly vulnerable because of everything they had been through during their migration and the traumatic experiences they were likely to have endured previously (see M.S.S., cited above, § 232). Moreover, in the present case the applicants, who were sixteen and seventeen years of age respectively, were even more vulnerable than any other adult asylum seeker detained at the time because of their age (see, a contrario, Mahamed Jama, cited above, § 100).

114. It follows, in the present case, that since the applicants were minors who were detained for a period of around eight months, the cumulative effect of the conditions complained of amounted to degrading treatment within the meaning of the Convention.

115. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 3 of the Convention.

[…].

123. The Court has already had occasion to examine such complaints and found that it had not been shown that applicants in situations such as that of the present case had at their disposal an effective and speedy remedy under domestic law by which to challenge the lawfulness of their detention (see, inter alia, Mahamed Jama, cited above, §§ 115-21, and Moxamed Ismaaciil and Abdirahman Warsame, cited above, § 112-18). There is no reason to hold otherwise in the present case.

124. Article 5 § 4 of the Convention has therefore been violated.

[…].

144. Nevertheless, the focus of the applicants’ complaint concerns the fact that they were detained despite the fact that at the time they had claimed to be minors (and later found to be so). The Court reiterates that the necessity of detaining children in an immigration context must be very carefully considered by the national authorities (see Mahamed Jama, cited above, § 147). It is positive that in the Maltese context, when an individual is found to be a minor, the latter is no longer detained, and he or she is placed in a non-custodial residential facility, and that detention of minors should be no longer than what is absolutely necessary to determine their identification and health status (see paragraphs 31 and 36 above). An issue may however arise, inter alia, in respect of a State’s good faith, in so far as the determination of age may take an unreasonable length of time - indeed, a lapse of various months may also result in an individual reaching his or her majority pending an official determination (ibid.).

145. The Court is, on the one hand, sensitive to the Government’s argument that younger looking individuals are fast tracked, and that the procedure is lengthier only in cases of persons close to adulthood, as well as their statement that in 2013 out of 567 individuals, only 274 were ruled to be minors (in 2012 only forty-six turned out to be minors out of seventy-five - see Mahamed Jama, cited above, § 148). The Court observes that, as noted in Mahamed Jama, cited above, less than 10% of arrivals claimed to be minors in 2012 (that is when the applicants started their age-assessment procedure). In this connection, the Court considers that despite the fact that “borderline” cases may require further assessment, the numbers of alleged minors per year put forward by the Government cannot justify a duration of more than seven months to determine the applicants claims. Indeed, the Government have not explained why it was necessary for the first applicant in the present case to wait for a few weeks for his first age-assessment interview (see paragraph 18 above) and to wait for around seven months to have a decision following a standard medical test. The Court notes that during this time the first applicant remained in detention, despite having been told orally that he had been found to be a minor six months before (see paragraph 18). Similarly the Government have not explained why, following his interview, the second applicant had to wait for five months to have the FAV test and to wait for another two and a half months for such a decision, and therefore for his release under a care order. Indeed, in the present case it transpires that in October 2012 the authorities were already aware that the first applicant was a minor, and yet he remained in detention until a care order was issued on 19 April 2013, while the second applicant remained in detention for at least another month after his age was determined. In this connection the Court notes that Government policy clearly states that vulnerable people are exempt from detention and that unaccompanied minors are considered as a vulnerable category (see paragraphs 30 and 31 above).

146. It follows that, even accepting that the detention was closely connected to the ground of detention relied on, namely to prevent an unauthorised entry, and in practice to allow for the applicants’ asylum claim to be processed with the required prior age assessment, the delays in the present case, particularly those subsequent to the determination of the applicants’ age, raise serious doubts as to the authorities’ good faith. A situation rendered even more serious by the fact that the applicants lacked any procedural safeguards (a shown by the finding of a violation of Article 5 § 4, at paragraph 124 above), as well as the fact that at no stage did the authorities ascertain whether the placement in immigration detention of the applicants was a measure of last resort for which no alternative was available (see, mutatis mutandis, Popov, cited above, § 119).

147. Moreover, as to the place and conditions of detention, the Court has already found that the situation endured by the applicants as minors, for a duration of eight months, was in breach of Article 3 of the Convention.

148. In conclusion, bearing in mind all the above, the Court considers that in the present case the applicants’ detention was not in compliance with Article 5 § 1. Accordingly, there has been a violation of that provision.