The dispute between the Göttingen immigration office and the Göttingen Asylum Working Group (AK Asyl) is also being fought in court. The Göttingen Administrative Court heard the case today of a member and board member of the AK Asyl, who was wrongly excluded from attending an appointment with the authority in March 2015 (Case No.: 1 A 315/15).
The 53-year-old plaintiff, accompanied by an interpreter, intended to attend an appointment at the immigration office on March 23, 2015, at the request of an asylum seeker, to discuss the extension of a temporary residence permit. However, both the plaintiff and the interpreter were denied entry to the appointment solely on the grounds that they were members of the Göttingen Asylum Support Group. The 27-year-old man from the Ivory Coast, who only speaks French, subsequently had to enter the immigration office alone.
The administrative court made it clear in today's hearing that it considers the refusal to allow the plaintiff to attend the appointment at the immigration office to be unlawful. The court stated, in essence, that no evidence had been presented to suggest that the plaintiff was "unsuitable" enough to exclude him as an advisor under Section 14 Paragraph 6 Sentence 1 of the Administrative Procedure Act.
"The Göttingen Asylum Working Group has been actively and voluntarily advocating for the rights of asylum seekers for years. In this work, they sometimes ask uncomfortable questions and publicly point out abuses at the immigration office. The file suggests that this could also have been the reason for the plaintiff's unlawful expulsion from the immigration office," suspects the plaintiff's lawyer, Sven Adam.
The practice of denying participation in appointments for any alleged member of the Asylum Support Group (AK Asyl) has apparently been discontinued by the city of Göttingen due to legal concerns. Therefore, the court today primarily addressed the question of whether there is still a legitimate interest in bringing a subsequent lawsuit to establish the illegality of the denial. Despite its apparent change in practice, the city of Göttingen was unwilling to declare that the denial of the plaintiff's legal representation had been unlawful at the time.
No verdict was reached today. It will be delivered to the parties in writing in the coming weeks.
