Syria: Foreign Ministry shows caution after ruling on protection status

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By Pinang Driod

According to the ruling of the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) in Münster on the protection status of a Syrians It remains unclear whether this will have an impact on current deportation practices. At the request of ZEIT ONLINE, the Foreign Ministry did not want to comment on the court’s decision and first awaited the written reasons for the ruling. It is not yet known on what basis the judges will base their assessment of the security situation Syria have undertaken at all.

The court had previously stated in its ruling that there was no serious, individual threat to the lives or physical integrity of civilians in Syria as a result of arbitrary Violence in the context of an internal armed conflict no longer existsThe first such ruling by a higher court goes against the current practice at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees to generally grant subsidiary protection to Syrian asylum seekers as refugees from the civil war, a spokesman for the highest administrative court in North Rhine-Westphalia said.

At the same time, the Ministry of Annalena Baerbock referred to previous findings on the situation in the country, which show a completely different picture than that of the OVG. Accordingly, there are still combat operations of varying intensity in Syria. There are credible reports of sometimes serious human rights violations, including torture and executions, which returnees have also suffered in the past.

“That is why the United Nations – which is present in Syria – continues to assess the conditions for a safe situation Return of refugees are not given,” a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry wrote to ZEIT ONLINE. Every year, the Foreign Ministry submits an up-to-date report on Syria to the domestic authorities and administrative courts, listing facts relevant to asylum and deportation.

The Ministry of the Interior is cautious

That too Federal Ministry of the Interior was reserved, but indicated that the Münster decision was certainly important. The authorities said that they had taken note of the ruling at the request of ZEIT ONLINE. The ministry of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) did not want to say what consequences the OVG decision would have for the granting of asylum or the current deportation practice. It is said that the decision-making practice is continuously examined together with the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) on the basis of the available sources. “This includes in particular judicial decisions, with decisions of the higher administrative courts playing an important role.”

Meanwhile, criticism of Pro Asyl’s verdict has been mounting. “The decision of the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia ignores the reality in Syria,” said Wiebke Judith, spokeswoman for Pro Asyl’s legal policy. Relevant sources such as the Foreign Ministry’s situation report showed that there was still “a significant conflict situation.” Moreover, hardly anyone is safe from the “torture regime of dictator Assad.”

The plaintiff in the case was sentenced to prison in Austria before entering Germany, because he was involved in the smuggling of people from Turkey to Europe. The Higher Administrative Court declared that he was not at risk of political persecution in Syria. He is excluded from refugee status because of the crimes he committed before entering the country. The conditions for subsidiary protection have also not been met.

Not binding on lower courts

This limited protection applies to people who are not recognised as individually persecuted refugees, but who demonstrate valid reasons why they would be at risk of serious harm – for example, from civil war – if they were to return to their country of origin. In Syria, asylum procedures have generally been based on such a threat to the lives or physical integrity of civilians. In the case of the applicant, from Hassakah province, the court found that this is not the case either in his home region in the northeast or in Syria in general. The judgment is not final.

Attorney Thomas Oberhäuser, chairman of the German Lawyers’ Association’s migration law working group, underestimates the significance of the ruling for Syrians in Germany. The Higher Administrative Court’s ruling is not binding on lower courts, he told ZEIT ONLINE. “It’s more of an opinion that the court sends out into the world.” From Oberhäuser’s perspective, the OVG’s ruling is primarily legal and political in nature. The verdict is not primarily based on the supposedly safe situation in Syria, but on the crimes committed by the Syrian suspect.

An unfortunate decision, according to Oberhäuser, both in terms of legal policy and for those involved. In doing so, the court prevented the issue of the protected status of Syrians in Germany from being clarified at federal level. Since the situation in Syria was not decisive for the verdict, it cannot be taken into account in the event of an appeal to the Federal Constitutional Court. “In this way, the OVG makes its actual message legally unassailable,” says Oberhäuser. And even if the subsidiary protection status were to be lifted for certain regions in Syria, this would have no consequences for a ban on deportations.

Buschmann: “Look carefully at who can be deported to which part of Syria”

“You can no longer say across the board that the security situation is the same in the entire country, but we have to look carefully,” said Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP). The logic behind this is that you always have to look carefully at who can be deported to which part of Syria, he said of the possible consequences.

This is a ruling by the court “which is understandable if one assumes that there are now regions in this country that are very dangerous, but there are also other regions where there is not necessarily any danger to life and limb.”

With material from dpa news agency

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