About Carmel Maher
Carmel qualified in Australia and in England and Wales. She has been a litigation lawyer since her first position in a city firm where she dealt with a broad spectrum of civil and criminal law cases. She moved on to academic research, and then to criminal prosecutions for the Director of Public Prosecution and sat as a registrar of the County Court of NSW in Sydney on civil cases.
In the UK, her experience was gained in child protection law for 10 years and she now specialises in advising local authorities on unaccompanied asylum- seeking children (UASC), and migrant families with no recourse to public funds (NRFP). The expertise she has in all aspects of legal duties owed to asylum seekers and NRPF persons, was gained from advisory work to a large county council which is at the forefront of case law related to age assessments and the provision of services to UASC. She also provides advice and training in age assessments and Human Rights assessments to social workers and legal teams in local authorities throughout the UK
She has extensive experience responding to pre action letters, of preparing cases for the defence of judicial review claims, and of instructing Counsel in the High Court, Upper Tribunal of Immigration and Asylum Chamber and the Court of Appeal.
She has been involved in several judicial review cases most notably the Upper Tribunal case of R (AS) v Kent County Council JR/11261/2016 relating to dental age assessments and benefit of the doubt; the High Court case of R(WM) v Kent County Council [2018] EWHC 2025 (Admin) regarding who is an asylum seeker for Children Act support; AB-v- Kent County Council [2020] EWHC 109 (Admin) in the High Court in which Mrs Justice Thornton considered short form age assessments and in the later successful fact finding hearing in the Upper Tribunal JR/1947/2020; and MA & HT -v-Coventry CC , SSHD and Kent CC (as interested party)[2022] EWHC 98 (Admin) on lawfulness of KIU age assessment guidance.
