Thema: Migration & Staatsangehörigkeit

Verfassungsrecht zur Staatsangehörigkeit und Migration im verfassungsrechtlichen Rahmen, verfassungsrechtliche Aspekte des Einwanderungsrechts, staatsbürgerliche Rechte und Pflichten sowie verfassungsrechtliche Regulierung der Migrationspolitik. Umfasst verfassungsrechtliche Staatsangehörigkeitskonzepte und verfassungsrechtliche Grenzen der Migrationsregulierung.

Europas Werk und Deutschlands Beitrag

Menschenrechte werden in stürmischen Zeiten erkämpft. Und bleiben umkämpft. Wir sind aktuell Zeug:innen davon, wie in der Flüchtlingspolitik – wieder einmal - menschenrechtlich erkämpfte Prinzipien in rasanter Geschwindigkeit offen infrage gestellt werden. Als SPD, Grüne und FDP 2021 ihren Koalitionsvertrag unterzeichneten, wollten sie das »Leid an den Außengrenzen« beenden. Nichts weniger als einen »Paradigmenwechsel« versprach die Ampel. Seit kurzer Zeit ist nun bekannt, dass die Bundesregierung von diesem Vorhaben entschieden abgerückt ist. In einem ersten Schritt hat sie eine äußerst restriktive Verhandlungsposition zur Reform des Gemeinsamen Europäischen Asylsystems (GEAS) eingenommen, die Anfang Juni im Rat der Europäischen Union debattiert wird.

15. Mai 2023

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Trading Rights for Responsibility

The newly published compromise text of the Asylum Procedures Regulation (APR) suggests to render border procedures mandatory in some cases, while also permitting first-entry states to derogate from them once their “adequate capacity” is reached. This adaptable approach to the use of border procedures seeks to resolve a long-standing disagreement between central EU countries and first-entry states. While the former consider the obligatory use of border procedures necessary to prevent onwards or  ‘secondary’ movement of asylum-seekers, southern EU states argue that their mandatory use would place a further strain on their resources and overburden their capacities for processing asylum claims. This blogpost first explains the problems with border procedures, reviews their role in increasing responsibility of first-entry states, and explains why the new compromise Draft is unlikely to resolve the disagreement between first-entry states and other Members States.

12. Mai 2023

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Automated predictive threat detection after Ligue des Droits Humains

The Ligue des droits humains ruling regarding automated predictive threat detection has implications for the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) Regulation and the EU Commission’s proposal for a Regulation on combating online child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Both legal instruments entail the use of potentially self-learning algorithms, and are spiritual successors to the PNR Directive (the subject of Ligue des droits humains).

12. Mai 2023

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Challenging Bias and Discrimination in Automated Border Decisions

In Ligue des droits humains, the Court of Justice of the European Union explicitly addresses the fact that the use of AI and self-learning risk models may deprive data subjects of their right to effective judicial protection as enshrined in the Charter. The importance of this judgment cannot be understated for non-EU citizens and at the European borders more generally.

11. Mai 2023

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Flexible Responsibility or the End of Asylum Law as We Know It?

On March 21 2023, the Council released a revised draft proposal for an Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR). It reintroduces the concept of ‘flexible responsibility’ — or ‘adaptable responsibility’ — into the EU’s migration management. Already included in the controversial Instrumentalisation Regulation of 14 December 2021, flexible responsibility is the idea that Member States should be allowed to derogate from normally applicable asylum standards when faced with sudden migratory pressures. While the Instrumentalisation Regulation was rejected in December 2022, this post will detail how the new AMMR draft threatens to reintroduce the idea of flexible/adaptable derogations — including, potentially, those originally foreseen in the Instrumentalisation Regulation — into the EU’s asylum framework and why we should reject it.

26. April 2023

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Navigating Uncharted Waters?

This contribution will briefly assess Ireland’s participation in the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) after ‘Brexit’. It will first review the way in which the ‘opt-in/opt-out’ arrangements still apply to Ireland, before considering how Ireland’s position might have evolved after Brexit. In this respect, it will feature some recent cases of the CJEU. Although Ireland considers the UK to be a safe third country for refugees, it is likely that their respective asylum policies will diverge even further, owing to their now very different positions with respect to EU law and especially the CEAS.

28. März 2023

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The Janus Face of Fetal Citizenship: A Tool of Inclusion or a Threat to Abortion Rights?

Should citizenship status be conferred upon an unborn child? In a 2022 landmark decision, Pranav Srinivasan v. Union of India, the Madras High Court answered this question in the affirmative. Srinivasan had not been born yet when his parents, with his mother being in the third trimester of her pregnancy, gave up their Indian for Singaporean citizenship. Now an adult and ostensibly to avoid the mandatory conscription for Singaporean citizens, Srinivasan sought to avail himself of a statutory right to reclaim his Indian citizenship, pursuant to section 8(2) of the Citizenship Act 1955. While the Court's ruling in Srinivasan's favour should be applauded for its inclusionary ethos, it threatens to undermine India's progressive abortion jurisprudence. A provision of the 1956 Hindu Succession Act might provide a solution to this conflict.

21. März 2023

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The Begum Case: Why Ministerial Discretion Precludes Human Rights Issues

In recent years, cancellation of British citizenship has become a high-profile issue. This is not least because of the case of Shamima Begum, who left the UK as a 15-year-old British schoolgirl for Syria in 2015. Upon being found in a camp in Syria four years ago, the Home Secretary removed her British citizenship soon thereafter, leaving her de facto stateless. After protracted litigation surrounding a number of preliminary issues, three weeks ago, Begum lost her appeal against the decision in front of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission’s (SIAC). The Commission’s refusal to allow her appeal is remarkable for the nearly unlimited degree of discretion it appears to grant the Home Secretary in cancellation cases, even where human rights are at stake.

16. März 2023

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What is the Point of the UK’s Illegal Migration Bill?

The introduction of the Illegal Migration Bill to the UK Parliament appears to be the latest outburst of the Conservative government’s increasing hysteria with respect to the small boat crossings of the Channel in which Brexit-released fantasies of post-imperial sovereign power are acted out in the form of half-baked legislative proposals. The politically inconvenient fact that most of the 15% of asylum seekers who reach UK territory in this way are found to have legitimate asylum or protection claims seems to be a particular source of rage with a leaked Conservative Party email to party members under Suella Braverman’s name blaming “an activist blob of leftwing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour Party” for boat crossings, which at least suggests she knows her audience. This is “Build the Wall” for an island nation and, like Trump’s project, its primary value is as a fantasy object than a practical project.

10. März 2023

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Shamima Begum’s Banishment is a Threat to Us All

Two weeks ago, the British Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) rejected Shamima Begum’s appeal against the Home Secretary’s decision to deprive her of citizenship, dealing the latest blow in her on-going battle to regain her status. SIAC’s choice to uphold the Home Secretary’s deprivation decision is not just blatantly unjust, unfairly punishing a victim of child trafficking, but also indicates a dangerous decline in the UK’s commitment to the rule of law.

10. März 2023

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