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The Berlin Administrative Court on Monday declared that rejection of asylum seekers at the German border was illegal, causing a major blow to the immigration policies of Prime Minister Friedrich Merz and Home Minister Alexander Dobrinz.
The court ruled the case of three Somali citizens deported at the Polish border, highlighting that Merz’s government violated the asylum law. The court says immigrants cannot be driven away unless the asylum application is reviewed first.
The Somali national, two men and one woman, were kicked out at the station after arriving from Poland on May 9th and demanding asylum in the eastern part of Frankfurt city.
The court has decided that after considering an emergency appeal from immigrants, it cannot be appealed.
The judge ruled that the rejection of foreigners was illegal as he said at least one of the migrants had a valid cause of asylum. They also added that the general policies of the new conservative government lack legal justification.
In May, the Mertz government announced a new, hard-line migration policy aimed at cracking down on irregular immigration. The new initiative has pledged to completely halt the asylum process, freeze applications and avoid asylum seekers at the border.
The court said the initiative is not in line with the Dublin system, the EU immigration policy. Under this system, Berlin is obligated to thoroughly investigate applications and make decisions on a case-by-case basis.
It also requires that each member state conduct a full-scale investigation to determine which member states are responsible for assessing asylum claims after they have been made.
“The administrative court decision today says that Dublin’s checks must be implemented, which means that border crossings must be made, and Germany needs to see which member states are responsible for the asylum procedure,” Dobrindt said.
“In this decision, the court said that justification for our measures should be more specific, which means we are complying with this request and providing more detailed reasons.”
The pushback at the border was a campaign promise of the new Prime Minister, Mertz and Home Minister Dobrinz, but many important voices have said are illegal. After the court’s ruling, at least one lawmaker called on Dobrindt to resign.
But Dobrindt argues that the pushback will continue, adding that he believes the government has a legal framework to support policy.
“By the way, we’re stuck with pushbacks. We know that we’ll continue this way, regardless of the decisions of this individual case, because the legal basis is there,” Dobrindt said.
The new, conservative federal government has sought to legally justify warding off asylum seekers at borders through provisions in Germany’s asylum law and the provisions of the Convention on the Function of the European Union.
Article 72 allows Member States to suspend EU law in the event of a threat to public order. The Berlin Court rejected the premise of calling Article 72, citing inadequate evidence of a threat to the state.
Additional sources •EBU
