The Higher Administrative Court in Mannheim issued a judgment in an asylum case involving an Afghan national at the end of a hearing held on 12 October 2018. This court essentially reaffirmed the decision made by court of first instance to dismiss the asylum applicant’s case.
The plaintiff, an Afghan national who had been living in Iran since he was a small child, came to Germany in the autumn of 2015. He applied for asylum, mainly on the premise that the Federal Republic of Germany should not be allowed to deport him to Kabul. In his opinion, the security and humanitarian situation were so poor that he would face destitution if he was deported. As a deportee from Western Europe, he would be stigmatised in Afghan society would have no social network in Afghanistan to provide him assistance.
During a hearing lasting several hours, the 11th Senate of the Higher Administrative Court was informed about the living conditions which Afghan nationals face after their deportation from Germany. The court had called the renowned expert on Afghanistan, Friederike Stahlmann, to present her findings on the current situation. Stahlmann had tried to follow up on the lives of individuals who had been deported to Afghanistan by Germany since December 2016, but this had only been possible in a relatively few number of cases.
In the end, the court was not persuaded that the plaintiff would face destitution if deported to Kabul. The court therefore rejected his petition to have it issue a deportation ban, as he was a healthy, single man of working age. When the judgment was read at the end of the hearing, the chief presiding judge of the 11th Senate stated that while Afghan nationals returning to Kabul did indeed face extremely difficult living conditions, the evidence available did not lead the judges to conclude that everyone deported from Europe to Kabul was necessarily in danger of inhumane or degrading treatment as defined by the European Convention on Human Rights.
Translated from German into English by Rosa Foyle
