Federal Constitutional Court: Blanket ban on admitting Afghans is "arbitrary"
The blanket ban imposed by the federal government on admitting at-risk Afghans violates the prohibition of arbitrary action. The Federal Constitutional Court has now ruled to this effect in the case of an Afghan woman and her two sons.
The Federal Constitutional Court has classified Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt's (CSU) blanket halt to the admission of at-risk Afghans — a process promised by previous federal governments — as arbitrary action.
Germany's highest court announced in Karlsruhe that a constitutional complaint filed by a woman with two minor sons had succeeded. The Interior Ministry's so-called declaration of departure from the decisions of predecessor governments did not meet "the requirements of the prohibition of arbitrariness," the court stated in its reasoning.
Court: Individual cases must be taken into account
Even though the government is granted wide discretionary powers regarding the admission of foreign nationals, it is "never 'completely free'" within a constitutional state, the ruling further stated.
A constitutional state may not disregard the fact that it is dealing with a person as a legal subject with individual interests. "The concerns of the person affected must therefore be taken into account in the further exercise of political discretion," the court said. The Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court (OVG) must now reconsider the case.
Claimant had received admission commitment
The specific case concerned an Afghan woman with two children who had been promised admission to Germany in December 2021, just a few months after the Taliban's recapture of Afghanistan. They were to be admitted under the so-called human rights list, as the woman had reason to fear being at risk under the Taliban due to her prior civic engagement.
In 2021, the government under then-Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) had established various mechanisms for admitting Afghans who had worked for German forces during the international military mission or had advocated for democracy and the rule of law.
Interior Ministry declared commitments invalid
The subsequent coalition government established the Federal Admission Programme for Afghanistan. Following last year's federal election, however, the new federal government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) decided to end voluntary German admission programmes to the greatest extent possible.
The Federal Interior Ministry declared the admission commitments issued under these programmes to be blanket invalid and void in December, a move that also affected the commitment made to the woman in question.
Prior to this, the black-red federal government had offered several hundred Afghans financial compensation in exchange for waiving their German admission commitments. A deadline for accepting this offer had expired in mid-November.
Case reference: 2 BvR 319/26
