Asylum seeker border rejection unlawful: German court
Germany has acted unlawfully by turning away asylum seekers at the border, a court has ruled, citing a case in which border police expelled three Somalis who tried to enter the country from Poland.
The two men and a woman were sent back to Poland from a train station in the eastern city of Frankfurt an der Oder on Germany's eastern border on the grounds that they had sought to enter from a safe third country, a court statement said.
The ruling could challenge the tougher migration stance by Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative-led coalition, which was elected in February promising a crackdown that has caused concern in neighbouring countries.
It is the first such case since Merz was elected, RBB media said, citing a court spokesperson.
"The rejection of the applicants was unlawful," the Berlin court said in a statement, explaining that their asylum application should have been processed by Germany under the European Union's so-called Dublin rules that determine which country is responsible for processing an asylum application.
"However, the applicants could not demand to enter the Federal Republic of Germany beyond the border crossing," it added, saying that the application could be processed at or near the border.
Migration is among German voters' biggest concerns and a backlash against an influx of new arrivals has contributed to a rise in support for the populist nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which came second in a federal election in February.
It is a profound shift since Germany's "Refugees Welcome" culture during Europe's migrant crisis in 2015 under Merz's conservative predecessor Angela Merkel.
Merz's government issued an order in May to reject undocumented migrants, including asylum seekers, at Germany's borders.
Monday's ruling was seized on by the Greens party, now in opposition, which said it vindicated their stance that Merz's migration crackdown was unworkable.
"This is a severe defeat for the federal government and should serve as a warning to abide by the law in the future and not knowingly exceed its own powers for populist purposes," Greens MP Irene Mihalic told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
"The border blockades were a rejection of the European Dublin system and have offended our European neighbours."
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said last week he hoped the European Union can reach a bloc-wide agreement allowing for failed asylum seekers who cannot go home to be sent to safe countries near their original homelands.
Karl Kopp, managing director of pro-immigration advocacy group Pro Asyl, told the Rheinische Post: "Dobrindt's unlawful practice of national unilateral action in asylum policy has failed. This nonsense must now come to an end."
He called for the three Somalis to be able to re-enter Germany.
The European Commission, the EU's executive body, proposed a scheme last month that would let member states reject asylum applications by migrants who passed through a "safe" third country on their way to the bloc.
The proposals, criticised by rights groups, have yet to be adopted by any member governments or the European Parliament.
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"We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Who the hell does that? It was a hospital, for god's sake. Full of the sick, the immobile. Babies. Mothers. Innocents. The tyrants will pay a high price, he told the media, with as straight a face as he could muster - a challenge for someone whose mouth always struggles to suppress an ironic smirk. This was a criminal act, he said. We target military installations; they target civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iranian missile strike on the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was meant to rally his nation, showing the world it was acting with high moral purpose. Instead, it reeked of hypocrisy. Just 40km away, in the rubble that was once Gaza, people have lost count of the number of times hospitals have been struck by Israel. Lost count, too, of the number of times Israel claimed the attacks - not just on hospitals but on schools and tented encampments - were targeting Hamas militants. The only count not lost: the 55,000 dead Palestinians. The day before the hospital was hit, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Gaza trying to get food from the shambolic Israeli-run aid distribution sites. Some of the dead showed injuries consistent with tank fire. Pot, kettle, black. Of course, the hypocrisy isn't limited to Netanyahu in this ugly slugfest between Israel and Iran. The leaders of our own democracies have been wallowing in it too. For years, they've championed a rules-based world order but the moment Israel breaks those rules - as international law experts argue it has with its pre-emptive strike on Iran - they go to water. Japan is the only G7 nation to condemn Israel's attack on Iran but has stopped short of sanctioning it. When a key enforcer of those rules, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says explicitly there is no evidence to indicate that Iran has a plan to develop nuclear weapons, justification for that pre-emptive strike looks as thin as George W. Bush's pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remember? 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The world made that clear when artillery shells struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Yet we hear little about the potential for a nuclear calamity if these strikes continue. We're informed of radiation levels in Iran by the IAEA, the nuclear enforcement agency granted access to its facilities because the country signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In so doing, it agreed to play by the very rules others seem so keen to dispense with. HAVE YOUR SAY: How important is it to maintain a rules-based order in international affairs? Should other countries follow Japan's lead in condemning Israel for its pre-emptive strike on Iran? Are we repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq back in 2003? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The Coalition's former leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, will join the Australian Banking Association as its chief executive, in his first major move outside politics. - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not go to The Hague for this week's NATO summit, with his deputy Richard Marles to represent Australia at the event as originally planned. - Artificial intelligence could disrupt more than just technology - it could widen the gender gap between boys and girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths. THEY SAID IT: "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." - Franklin D. Roosevelt YOU SAID IT: Our relationship with the US is not what it used to be. Perhaps it's time, Garry wrote, that we grew up and moved on. "Many of us, including various peace groups and LAW (Labor Against War) are not happy to be aligned with the US, the planet's most aggressive country since World War II," writes Judy from Newcastle. "AUKUS is a wasteful mistake. We don't have enemies, however, our sycophantic politicians allow increasing US bases, troops, ports and general infrastructure for a war. These threaten our security. Now is the perfect time to part company." There's still hope for the relationship, writes Arthur: "Donald Trump has only three and a half years to run, assuming he does not find his way to get re-elected. At the end of his term we may be able to start a process of reconciliation but we must never go back to being so vulnerable to the whims of a future president." "For these past 50 years I have been longing for Australia to be an adult country," writes Debora. "We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Who the hell does that? It was a hospital, for god's sake. Full of the sick, the immobile. Babies. Mothers. Innocents. The tyrants will pay a high price, he told the media, with as straight a face as he could muster - a challenge for someone whose mouth always struggles to suppress an ironic smirk. This was a criminal act, he said. We target military installations; they target civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iranian missile strike on the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was meant to rally his nation, showing the world it was acting with high moral purpose. Instead, it reeked of hypocrisy. Just 40km away, in the rubble that was once Gaza, people have lost count of the number of times hospitals have been struck by Israel. Lost count, too, of the number of times Israel claimed the attacks - not just on hospitals but on schools and tented encampments - were targeting Hamas militants. The only count not lost: the 55,000 dead Palestinians. The day before the hospital was hit, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Gaza trying to get food from the shambolic Israeli-run aid distribution sites. Some of the dead showed injuries consistent with tank fire. Pot, kettle, black. Of course, the hypocrisy isn't limited to Netanyahu in this ugly slugfest between Israel and Iran. The leaders of our own democracies have been wallowing in it too. For years, they've championed a rules-based world order but the moment Israel breaks those rules - as international law experts argue it has with its pre-emptive strike on Iran - they go to water. Japan is the only G7 nation to condemn Israel's attack on Iran but has stopped short of sanctioning it. When a key enforcer of those rules, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says explicitly there is no evidence to indicate that Iran has a plan to develop nuclear weapons, justification for that pre-emptive strike looks as thin as George W. Bush's pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remember? The weapons of mass destruction no one could find. All we see, however, are bland appeals for de-escalation and a diplomatic resolution. Israel isn't chastised for its risky impunity. Instead, it's given tacit support with statements about its right to defend itself even if there's no evidence of an imminent threat. Applying that logic, was Russia justified in invading Ukraine because it perceived an imminent threat? Of course it wasn't. But in geopolitics what's good for the goose doesn't always apply to the gander. You only have to pause on the words of German chancellor Friedrich Merz to see how that works: "This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us." Dirty work indeed. It's not in anyone's interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Nor for Israel to have them for that matter. And it's certainly not in anyone's interest to have missiles raining down on nuclear facilities either. The world made that clear when artillery shells struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Yet we hear little about the potential for a nuclear calamity if these strikes continue. We're informed of radiation levels in Iran by the IAEA, the nuclear enforcement agency granted access to its facilities because the country signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In so doing, it agreed to play by the very rules others seem so keen to dispense with. HAVE YOUR SAY: How important is it to maintain a rules-based order in international affairs? Should other countries follow Japan's lead in condemning Israel for its pre-emptive strike on Iran? Are we repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq back in 2003? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The Coalition's former leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, will join the Australian Banking Association as its chief executive, in his first major move outside politics. - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not go to The Hague for this week's NATO summit, with his deputy Richard Marles to represent Australia at the event as originally planned. - Artificial intelligence could disrupt more than just technology - it could widen the gender gap between boys and girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths. THEY SAID IT: "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." - Franklin D. Roosevelt YOU SAID IT: Our relationship with the US is not what it used to be. Perhaps it's time, Garry wrote, that we grew up and moved on. "Many of us, including various peace groups and LAW (Labor Against War) are not happy to be aligned with the US, the planet's most aggressive country since World War II," writes Judy from Newcastle. "AUKUS is a wasteful mistake. We don't have enemies, however, our sycophantic politicians allow increasing US bases, troops, ports and general infrastructure for a war. These threaten our security. Now is the perfect time to part company." There's still hope for the relationship, writes Arthur: "Donald Trump has only three and a half years to run, assuming he does not find his way to get re-elected. At the end of his term we may be able to start a process of reconciliation but we must never go back to being so vulnerable to the whims of a future president." "For these past 50 years I have been longing for Australia to be an adult country," writes Debora. "We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Who the hell does that? It was a hospital, for god's sake. Full of the sick, the immobile. Babies. Mothers. Innocents. The tyrants will pay a high price, he told the media, with as straight a face as he could muster - a challenge for someone whose mouth always struggles to suppress an ironic smirk. This was a criminal act, he said. We target military installations; they target civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iranian missile strike on the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was meant to rally his nation, showing the world it was acting with high moral purpose. Instead, it reeked of hypocrisy. Just 40km away, in the rubble that was once Gaza, people have lost count of the number of times hospitals have been struck by Israel. Lost count, too, of the number of times Israel claimed the attacks - not just on hospitals but on schools and tented encampments - were targeting Hamas militants. The only count not lost: the 55,000 dead Palestinians. The day before the hospital was hit, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Gaza trying to get food from the shambolic Israeli-run aid distribution sites. Some of the dead showed injuries consistent with tank fire. Pot, kettle, black. Of course, the hypocrisy isn't limited to Netanyahu in this ugly slugfest between Israel and Iran. The leaders of our own democracies have been wallowing in it too. For years, they've championed a rules-based world order but the moment Israel breaks those rules - as international law experts argue it has with its pre-emptive strike on Iran - they go to water. Japan is the only G7 nation to condemn Israel's attack on Iran but has stopped short of sanctioning it. When a key enforcer of those rules, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says explicitly there is no evidence to indicate that Iran has a plan to develop nuclear weapons, justification for that pre-emptive strike looks as thin as George W. Bush's pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remember? The weapons of mass destruction no one could find. All we see, however, are bland appeals for de-escalation and a diplomatic resolution. Israel isn't chastised for its risky impunity. Instead, it's given tacit support with statements about its right to defend itself even if there's no evidence of an imminent threat. Applying that logic, was Russia justified in invading Ukraine because it perceived an imminent threat? Of course it wasn't. But in geopolitics what's good for the goose doesn't always apply to the gander. You only have to pause on the words of German chancellor Friedrich Merz to see how that works: "This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us." Dirty work indeed. It's not in anyone's interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Nor for Israel to have them for that matter. And it's certainly not in anyone's interest to have missiles raining down on nuclear facilities either. The world made that clear when artillery shells struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Yet we hear little about the potential for a nuclear calamity if these strikes continue. We're informed of radiation levels in Iran by the IAEA, the nuclear enforcement agency granted access to its facilities because the country signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In so doing, it agreed to play by the very rules others seem so keen to dispense with. HAVE YOUR SAY: How important is it to maintain a rules-based order in international affairs? Should other countries follow Japan's lead in condemning Israel for its pre-emptive strike on Iran? Are we repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq back in 2003? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The Coalition's former leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, will join the Australian Banking Association as its chief executive, in his first major move outside politics. - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not go to The Hague for this week's NATO summit, with his deputy Richard Marles to represent Australia at the event as originally planned. - Artificial intelligence could disrupt more than just technology - it could widen the gender gap between boys and girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths. THEY SAID IT: "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." - Franklin D. Roosevelt YOU SAID IT: Our relationship with the US is not what it used to be. Perhaps it's time, Garry wrote, that we grew up and moved on. "Many of us, including various peace groups and LAW (Labor Against War) are not happy to be aligned with the US, the planet's most aggressive country since World War II," writes Judy from Newcastle. "AUKUS is a wasteful mistake. We don't have enemies, however, our sycophantic politicians allow increasing US bases, troops, ports and general infrastructure for a war. These threaten our security. Now is the perfect time to part company." There's still hope for the relationship, writes Arthur: "Donald Trump has only three and a half years to run, assuming he does not find his way to get re-elected. At the end of his term we may be able to start a process of reconciliation but we must never go back to being so vulnerable to the whims of a future president." "For these past 50 years I have been longing for Australia to be an adult country," writes Debora. "We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?"
