2020
97 pp.
appendix: 2 figures: 1. Beispiel eines Asylentscheids, 2. Der Aufbau eines Gerichtssaals im Verwaltungsgericht
Text language: German
At present, we are experiencing a time when wars, religious persecution and poverty are forcing more than 68 million people worldwide to flee, according to UN estimates. This is leading to a significant increase in asylum applications worldwide, including in Germany. Since the 1990s, about 4.8 million people have applied for asylum in Germany, which is a considerable increase compared to the period from the beginning of record-keeping (1953) until the fall of the Iron Curtain, when only about 0.9 million people applied for asylum in Germany. This development means a big problem for modern nation-states, because the asylum procedure cannot be in the interest of a state in the first place. The state is supposed to be a guarantor of stability for its citizens by reliably providing services for the general public. These are financed by its members, the citizens. In this respect, the state is to be understood as a self-contained system. The state guarantees services for its members, but must then deny them to non-members in order to exist as a system. One tool for this is the control of migration through entry regulations. Through these control mechanisms, the state demonstrates its sovereignty to the outside world. The principle “politically persecuted persons enjoy asylum” from Article 16 of the Basic Law contradicts the state’s need for control and stability.
The author demonstrates that the asylum decision is a result of the implementation of many legal practices between different actors who also represent different interests. In order to understand how the conflict of interests plays out in the asylum process, it is necessary to analyze the practices that lead to the determination of the asylum decision. Therefore, after explaining the research methods that underlie the data collection of this thesis, the first step is to clarify what the legal requirements are in the asylum process and how the process is conducted in practice. After that, the author presents how legal advisors and lawyers act in the asylum procedure. This is followed by an analysis of how courts make the final decision on the asylum application. Finally, the author illustrates the perspective of asylum seekers in the asylum procedure using two case studies from Afghanistan and Sierra Leone.