Germany's Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) has suffered a setback in the legal dispute over halted admission programs for Afghan refugees. An Afghan mother and her two minor sons succeeded on Friday before the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe in securing a fresh review of their case. The family had been refused a visa for Germany that had originally been promised to them, based on guidelines issued by Dobrindt's ministry.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior, meanwhile, says it feels largely vindicated by the ruling. Karlsruhe described the interior ministry's blanket guidelines as a violation of the constitutional ban on arbitrary state action, ruling that each individual case must be examined on its own merits.
A spokeswoman for Dobrindt, however, told the newspaper Die Welt: "The Federal Constitutional Court agrees in large part with the German government's argument that admission declarations can also be revoked if the political interest changes." She stressed that the Constitutional Court instructs the Federal Ministry of the Interior "to take the individual case into account when departing from that position."
The Greens described the ruling as a "painful defeat" for Dobrindt. For his department, "the headlines about tough migration policy have apparently mattered more recently than the rule of law's promise of protection," Green Party interior policy spokesman Marcel Emmerich told the news agency AFP. "That is exactly the arbitrariness Karlsruhe is now putting an end to."
The federal government in office since 2025 has made a markedly tougher approach to refugees than its predecessor, the so-called traffic-light coalition, a centerpiece of its policy. That included halting voluntary admission programs for people from Afghanistan.
The successful plaintiff had received a pledge of admission to Germany in 2021 through the so-called Human Rights List. This list was intended to allow admission to Germany for people who had made themselves a target through their civic engagement, for example, by supporting German interests, and who were endangered by the radical Islamist Taliban's seizure of power in August 2021.
In December, the Federal Ministry of the Interior declared the admission pledges "invalid and lapsed" for around 640 people who were still on the Human Rights List at the time; their visa applications were rejected.
The woman lost her case against this decision at the level of the administrative courts. The Federal Constitutional Court, however, has now ruled that the interior ministry's declaration amounted to a violation of the ban on arbitrariness. Despite having wide latitude for its decisions, the ruling states, the federal government is never entirely free in a state governed by the rule of law. Each individual case must therefore be examined, taking the person's specific circumstances into account.
The Higher Administrative Court (OVG) of Berlin-Brandenburg must now reconsider the case, taking the requirements of the ban on arbitrariness into account. As Karlsruhe stated in its ruling, a so-called declaration of withdrawal from an admission pledge remains possible and permissible in principle, but such a declaration must make clear that the individual circumstances of the foreign national concerned were acknowledged and taken into account.
After receiving the admission pledge, the woman traveled to Islamabad, Pakistan, in the autumn of 2024, where she has been living with her sons ever since. The OVG Berlin-Brandenburg may now need to issue an interim ruling on whether support for the family in Pakistan must continue. It can be assumed that the Federal Republic is constitutionally obligated to do so. Germany must also press the Pakistani government to ensure the family is not arrested and not deported to Afghanistan.
According to the latest figures from the federal government, a total of 36,782 people have come to Germany through the various admission programs since the Taliban takeover. Of these, around 15,000 came via the Human Rights List, compared with the 640 people still remaining whose admission pledges the federal government declared to have lapsed.
According to the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (Society for Civil Rights) and the Kabul Luftbrücke initiative, the successful plaintiff is an Afghan women's rights activist with two minor children. Both organizations are supporting affected individuals with a model constitutional complaint. As they announced on Friday, 30 further such complaints are still pending before the Constitutional Court.
The Karlsruhe ruling was "clear" and "good news for fundamental rights," said lawyer Mareile Dedekin of the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte in Berlin. "The federal government may not blanketly withdraw its promise of protection to highly endangered Afghans."
The human rights organization Pro Asyl called on the federal government to draw consequences from the ruling. It must "immediately review affected cases individually, make the promised admission possible, and continue supporting those waiting until a constitutional decision has been made in each individual case," Pro Asyl demanded.
"Germany's highest court has officially found Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt guilty of arbitrariness in decisions over life and death," said Clara Bünger, deputy leader of the Left Party's parliamentary group in the Bundestag. The federal government must now "immediately honor all pledges that were unlawfully withdrawn and bring those affected to safety without delay."
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