German legal system under threat due to number of asylum cases judge warns
German courts are on the brink of collapse, a top German judge has warned in an interview, as cases filed by asylum seekers to challenge decisions by immigration authorities, have skyrocketed.
Published: July 22, 2017, 9:46 am
The legal system is on the brink of collapse due to the number of cases filed, said Robert Seegmuller, chairman of the Association of German Administrative Law Judges. “The situation is dramatic for administrative courts,” Seegmuller told RND. “We are now completely stretched to our limits.”
Seegmuller was interviewed by the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), a publishing concern on the number of cases which has overwhelmed the civil courts of the country. Based on RND’s estimations, there are approximately 250 000 such cases waiting to heard.
The judge has been keeping track of the number of lawsuits being filed against the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). Thousands of applicants have challenged the decisions delivered on their cases by the BAMF, including deportation orders back to potentially unsafe countries such as Afghanistan, RT reported.
“The administrative court system cannot endure such a figure in the long run. At some point, everything will collapse. Things may go well for a while, but not permanently,” Seegmüller warned.
The German legal system is overburdened with too few judges and a lack of personnel, space, and IT capabilities, he added. “The justice system is indeed determined to bulk itself up, but it is ever more difficult to find the desperately needed personnel,” he said.
Seegmuller said in addition to the volume of work, the courts have to deal with poor decision-making by immigration authorities, but would not elaborate on what the poor decisions were.
In the state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone, there were roughly 47 300 asylum cases in 2016, up from 21 300 the year before. That means the numbers more than doubled and there’s no end in sight for the upcoming year.
Some courts have reported a backlog of up to two years due to the extreme situation of the flood of migrants arriving in Germany. A growing number of Syrian refugees are suing for the right to be reunited with their families, after the German government passed new asylum regulations in March 2016.
The new rule grants refugees from Syria only subsidiary protection instead of full asylum. With subsidiary protection, applicants have to wait two years before they are allowed to bring their family to Germany.
Subsidiary protection is granted to those who cannot show that they have been personally persecuted. Previously, Syrian refugees had received special treatment and were generally granted asylum.
The German constitution only grants right of asylum to people who are politically persecuted. It doesn’t apply to people fleeing general situations like civil war.
Subsidiary protection status instead of asylum, means refugees only get a one-year-permit before they have to apply again. With asylum status, that time period is three years.
Bernd Mesovic, the deputy director of the NGO Pro Asyl, had warned politicians that they would be facing a flood of law suits. “These people are trying to get together with their families,” Mesovic said.
By December 2016, around 36 000 individuals had already gone to court hoping to turn their subsidiary protection status into full-fledged asylum.
A court ruled in favor of a Somalian applicant in October 2015, saying that BAMF had to compensate the applicant if his application was not processed within a reasonable timeframe. The court’s ruling stated that applicants should be able to expect decisions within three months. Under extreme circumstances, such as the current refugee influx, BAMF can take up to six months to process a request.
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