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On 11 July 2018, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig issued a ruling (case no. BVerwG 1 C 18.17) concerning the right of asylum applicants to file legal actions to force The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) to make a decision about their asylum applications. The court determined that applicants may lodge an action against BAMF if a decision has not been made on their asylum application within three months. It also believed applicants have a legitimate interest in taking legal action for the sole purpose of obliging BAMF to make a decision on their applications.

The Federal Administrative Court issued a ruling in Leipzig on 12 July 2018 (Case no BVerwG 1 C 16.17) which addresses the issue of expelling foreigners who have committed crimes on grounds of general deterrence. According to German law, general deterrence can be used as a reason for justifying the government’s demand to expel a foreigner even under the new expulsion legislation in effect since 2016. The law stipulates that a residence permit normally cannot be granted if there is a public interest in expelling a foreigner.

The Court of Justice of the European Union decided on 12 July 2018 in the case C-89/17 that a Member State must facilitate the entry and residence of the non-EU partner with whom an EU citizen has a durable relationship. A decision to refuse such a residence authorisation to the non-EU partner must be founded on an extensive examination of the applicant’s personal circumstances and be justified by reasons.

Foreigners who have been granted subsidiary protection as their final status, and as such are not entitled to family reunification, do not have a legitimate interest in taking legal action for the additional ascertainment of meeting the preconditions for being issued a national ban on deportation, which would make it easier to meet the requirements for family reunification. This was the ruling of the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig in its judgment from 19 April 2018 (BVerwG 1 C 29.17) in a leapfrog appeal filed by the plaintiff in December 2017, which bypassed the lower appeals court.

The Court of Justice of the EU decided on 17. April 2018 in joined cases C-316/16 and C-424/16 that it is a prerequisite of eligibility for enhanced protection against expulsion that the person concerned must have a right of permanent residence. The requirement of having ‘resided in the host Member State for the previous ten years’, which is also a prerequisite of eligibility for that enhanced protection, may be satisfied where an overall assessment of the citizen’s situation leads to the conclusion that, notwithstanding his detention, the integrative links between the citizen and the host Member State have not been broken.

I. General Information for Non-EU citizens

The legal basis for being issued a visa in order to work as an au-pair is section 18 paragraph 3 of the German Residence Act in conjunction with section 12 in the Employment Ordinance. Moreover, an au-pair must comply with the instructions in the Bundesagentur für Arbeit’s current information sheets. EU regulation 2016/801 (REST regulation) does not specify that the rules on entering and residing in the country must be implemented for working as an au-pair. For this reason, no adaptations to German national laws were made for this group of people.

The number of deportations continued to increase again in 2016. The government released numerous statistics related to the topic of deportations and voluntary departures upon the request of the socialist party DIE LINKE. The figures show there were 25,375 deportations in 2016, which is the equivalent of a 21.5 % increase compared to the previous year. The number of assisted voluntary departures even increased by 45% to well over 54,000. Additionally, there were many departures assisted by state funds as well as unassisted departures, but unfortunately there is no valid data on the number of these.

In January 2018, the German lawyers association, Deutsches Anwaltsinstitut, held its 24th annual conference on administrative law in Leipzig, where the President of the Federal Administrative Court, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Klaus Rennert, spoke about the challenges the administrative courts are facing as a result of the dramatic increase in legal proceedings in asylum-related matters.

In its judgment from 19 November 2013 (BVerwG 10 C 27.12), the 10th Senate of the German Federal Administrative Court decided that a foreigner’s refugee protection status can be revoked by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) even in cases where the status was granted on the basis of a legally binding court decision, if the court was misled about a main aspect of the refugee’s story about being persecuted.

On 17 December 2015, the German Federal Administrative Court decided that a foreigner is not entitled to a temporary residence permit (Aufenthaltserlaubnis) if his asylum procedure has not been fully completed. This is also the case if the foreigner cannot be deported because the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has protected him from deportation by granting him the protection status known as a national ban on deportation.

Where doubts concerning the interpretation and application of European Union law arise in proceedings before the regular courts for the review of extradition requests received by way of mutual legal assistance as determined by European Union law, the right to one’s lawful judge requires that the relevant questions be referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling. Failure to comply with the duty of referral incumbent upon regular courts under European Union law does not always violate the guarantee of Art. 101(1) second sentence of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz – GG).

On 29 August 2017, the 1st chamber of the 2nd court panel of the Federal Constitutional Court decided unanimously in several cases that denying legal aid for lawsuits brought forward by asylum seekers from Syria is not compatible with the constitutionally protected right of having equal access to judicial review. The Federal Constitutional Court overturned the judgments from lower courts, which had denied the Syrian asylum seekers financial assistance from public funds for legal expenses associated with their cases, otherwise known as legal aid.

The Court of the European Union decided on 20 December 2017 (case number C-442/16) that an EU citizen who, after more than one year, has ceased to work in a self-employed capacity in another Member State because of an absence of work owing to reasons beyond his control retains the status of self-employed person and, consequently, a right to reside in that Member State.

Spanish authorities systematically and often violently expel refugees and migrants at the border with Morocco. This long-standing practice of push-backs at the external borders of the European Union (EU) is unlawful. Automatic expulsions violate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) today ruled in Strasbourg.

In response to the migration crisis that affected Europe in the summer of 2015, the Council of the European Union adopted a decision in order to help Italy and Greece deal with the massive inflow of migrants. The decision provides for the relocation from those two Member States to other EU Member States, over a period of two years, of 120 000 persons in clear need of international protection. That mechanism is actually a proportionate means of enabling Greece and Italy to deal with the impact of the 2015 migration crisis.

The Court of Justice of the European Union decided in case Tsegezab Mengesteab v Germany (C-670/16) that an asylum seeker may rely in legal proceedings on the fact that the Member State has become responsible for examining his application because of the expiry of the three-month period within which that Member State may request another Member State to take charge of him.

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