A top lawyer has warned that Western democracies are in danger without reforms to the asylum system. Hans-Jürgen Papier, who was previously the most senior judge in Germany, said the current rules have led to “uncontrolled and unconditional immigration”.
The 82-year-old currently works as a professor of public law at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. He argues that the current ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has gone too far beyond the original definition of the right to asylum. It comes after German chancellor Angela Merkel decided to leave the country’s borders open 10 years ago, insisting that they could “cope”.
However, as reported by The Times, Germany has since taken in 3.5 million migrants, including 1.1 million from Ukraine, while bordering nations have hardened their immigration policies. German voters are now exhausted with the situation, which has led to a strain in public services and prevalence of immigrants in crime statistics.
According to Papier, current asylum rulings have led to an “ever deeper reaching and ever more closely meshed agglomeration”. He said that the ECHR has turned the right to asylum into a “de facto right to immigration through the back door”.
Papier explained: “The prospect that those in positions of political responsibility in Europe could change this system and adapt it to the fundamental changes in our social, political and cultural conditions seems ever more difficult and ever more hopeless to many people.
“The citizens expect those with political responsibility to revise the asylum policies to suit the changed circumstances. But that is in danger of failing because of the ossification of a body of law that is getting increasingly rarefied and ultimately looks irreversible to many politicians.”
He added that the situation was “generally destroying the European citizen’s trust in the capacity of their democratic institutions to act, and so at the end of the day endangering the existence of western democracies”.
Papier criticised judges’ broad interpretations of Articles 3 and 8 of the ECHR. They safeguard the right to freedom from torture or inhuman treatment and the right to family life respectively.
German courts have used the “unhuman treatment” clause to block the extradition of asylum seekers as they may become homeless or forced to work on the black market. Papier said that this “goes too far”, adding: “Here human dignity is being treated like small change and thereby robbed of its special dignified status.”
He suggests that governments across Europe should agree on a “fundamentally new, precisely formulated law of migration, with clear rules that contain no contradictions, which does not leave any great room for interpretation by the judiciary”. They should also be allowed to set a maximum number for the amount of migrants they take each year.
At the moment, migrants can only apply for asylum once they have arrived in a country. However, Papier wants to abandon this rule and replace it with an electronic visa.
These would allow certain migrants into a country while exluding others from entry. European governments could also be given power to set limits on “subsidiary protection”, helping those who do not qualify as refugees but face serious harm if returned to their home country.