Berlin Administrative Court has ruled that rejecting asylum seekers at Germany’s borders was unlawful without following the Dublin Regulation procedure.
The ruling marked a serious defeat for Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
The court clarified that asylum seekers must not be turned away without adhering to the Dublin Regulation, an European Union rule that determines which member state was responsible for processing an asylum application — typically the first EU country the applicant entered.
This regulation was designed to prevent multiple asylum applications across different countries and ensure swift access to asylum procedures.
Three Somali nationals — two men and one woman — sued the German Government after being sent back to Poland.
On May 9, they had been returned to Poland from Frankfurt under new government rules.
Interior minister Alexander Dobrindt of the Christian Democrat Party (CDU) had introduced stricter border controls upon taking office in early May, including rejecting asylum seekers at the borders.
The three Somalis were checked by the Federal Police and returned to Poland on the same day on the grounds they had entered from a safe third country.
According to the Administrative Court, their rejection was unlawful. Since the three had expressed their desire for asylum, they had to be allowed to cross the border, but not necessarily without restrictions.
Under the Dublin procedure, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees should verify which state is responsible for the asylum procedure.
In most cases, that was the European country to which those affected first travelled.
The German Government could not invoke the fact that the Dublin Regulation did not have to be applied in the case of an emergency, the court explained. It could not base the rejections on an exception and the risk of danger to public safety or order had not been demonstrated.
According to the regulation, it was possible to carry out the procedure at the border or within the border area without necessarily having to be associated with an entry permit. According to the court, the decisions were incontestable.
Marcel Emmerich, domestic policy spokesman for the Greens in the Bundestag, or parliament, told German newspaper Die Welt that the border rejections were a bad idea and should be ended.
“Dobrindt’s symbolic politics laid bare: A blatant violation of the law,” Emmerich said. “What is sold as a strength is a dangerous blind flight on the backs of those seeking protection, emergency services and the idea of a united Europe.”
The Greens have been warning for months that “the Union and SPD are running into a breach of the law with their eyes wide open and that is exactly what seems to be the case now”.
Günter Krings, deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, told Die Welt: “This ruling, from a first-instance court’s interim legal protection, stems from a preliminary review.”
He noted that while the decision must be respected in this specific case, it lacked broader impact and should not be overstated. Krings added that many prominent lawyers disagreed with the Berlin Administrative Court’s assessment of the issue.
“I think it is right to interpret European law according to its meaning and purpose, and therefore consider the rejections to be permissible,” he said.
“Therefore, I do not think it is necessary for the Ministry of the Interior to change its moderate practice at our borders.”
Migration has been a key issue in the latest German elections, fuelling the election victory of the Right.
The CDU, though, soon joined up with the Left to form a coalition government, turning its back on most of its election promises.
Returning migrants at the border was one of the few policy changes Merz had moved to implement.
