Translated from German:
The Berlin Administrative Court has ruled in several summary proceedings: Anyone who applies for asylum at a border control on German territory may not simply be turned back - the so-called Dublin procedure must first be carried out in order to clarify which EU state is responsible for the asylum procedure.
Three Somalis, two men and one woman, had filed a complaint. They arrived in Germany by train from Poland on May 9 and applied for asylum. The federal police checked them at Frankfurt (Oder) station and sent them back to Poland on the same day.
The reason given was that they had entered the country from a safe third country. The applicants, who are currently residing in Poland, filed urgent applications against this.
According to a court spokeswoman, this is the first court decision on the new regulations introduced by Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (54, CSU). These stricter rules have been in force since May 7. Dobrindt had decreed them just a few hours after taking office. At the same time, he ordered that asylum seekers can also be turned back at the border.
However, the court also ruled that migrants cannot demand to travel further inland. It is also possible to carry out the Dublin procedure at or near the border.
For asylum expert Philipp Pruy (38), the urgent decision by the Berlin Administrative Court came as anything but a surprise: “It was foreseeable that administrative courts would overturn the new regulation on blanket refoulement, given the situation under European law.”
According to the established case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), refoulement of asylum seekers at the EU's internal border is regularly unlawful. This was most recently confirmed by the ECJ in its ruling of 21.09.2023 (Ref.: C.143/22).
Migration expert Pruy explains to BILD: “After an asylum application, a Dublin procedure must regularly be initiated, after which a return decision with a deadline for voluntary departure can be issued.” According to the lawyer, the BMI's new policy of rejecting asylum applications across the board and simply skipping the established Dublin procedure is therefore clearly contrary to European law under the current legal situation.
What is the Dublin procedure?
This is a European Union (EU) procedure that regulates which European country is responsible for a refugee's asylum procedure. This is usually the country where the refugee first entered the country. This applies, for example, to boat refugees who reach the shores of Italy via the Mediterranean. Or - as in the case of Solingen attacker Issa al Hasan - “protection seekers” who enter the EU via the Bulgarian-Turkish border. They have to apply for asylum there.