DECISION
in the proceedings
xxx,
– Applicant –
Legal representative:
Attorney Sven Adam
, Lange-Geismar-Str. 55, 37073 Göttingen
against
The State of Baden-Württemberg,
represented by the Rastatt District – District Office,
represented by the District Office
at Am Schlossplatz 5, 76437 Rastatt
– Respondent –
The 12th Chamber of the Social Court of Karlsruhe decided on April 13, 2026 in Karlsruhe through Judge xxx of the Social Court without oral proceedings:
1. By way of preliminary injunction, the respondent is provisionally ordered, subject to the right of recovery, until a final and unappealable decision is reached on the plaintiff's objection of March 13, 2026, against the defendant's decision of February 13, 2026 (file no.: 2892.444228), to grant the applicant basic benefits pursuant to Sections 3 and 3a of the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act (AsylbLG) from March 16, 2026, until August 31, 2026, in accordance with the standard benefit level 1 applicable for 2026, and taking into account the monetary benefits already paid to him and to the third-party creditor (for the compensation for use of accommodation in the municipal homeless shelter of the municipality of Bischweier) based on the approval of February 13, 2026, and in accordance with the legal opinion of the court.
2. The respondent shall reimburse the applicant's extrajudicial costs.
REASONS
For the application for preliminary legal protection to be successful, both the procedural requirements for a decision on the merits and all substantive requirements for the requested preliminary legal protection must be met:
I. Section 86b paragraph 2 of the Social Court Act (SGG) applies to the admissible application for interim relief.
The applicant requests an extension of his legal position from March 16, 2026 to August 31, 2026. He wants to be granted higher asylum seeker benefits than those granted to him by the Rastatt district on February 13, 2026, up to and including August 31, 2026, only in accordance with the lower or less favorable standard benefit level 2.
The applicant in case S 12 AY 1004/26 ER has complied with the admissibility requirements of Section 86b Paragraph 2 of the Social Court Act (SGG), which is not disputed by the respondent.
II. The application for preliminary legal protection is also justified pursuant to Section 86b Paragraph 2 Sentence 1 of the Social Court Act (SGG).
Pursuant to Section 86b Paragraph 2 Sentence 1 of the Social Court Act (SGG), the court of first instance may, upon application, issue a preliminary injunction concerning the subject matter of the dispute if there is a risk that a change in the existing state of affairs could frustrate or significantly impede the realization of a right (protective injunction). Preliminary injunctions are also permissible under Section 86b Paragraph 2 Sentence 2 of the SGG to regulate a provisional state of affairs with regard to a disputed legal relationship if such regulation appears necessary to avert substantial disadvantages (regulatory injunction). The issuance of a preliminary injunction generally requires an examination of the prospects of success in the main proceedings as well as the necessity of a preliminary judicial decision. The prospects of success of the main legal remedy (claim for an injunction) and the urgency of the desired preliminary injunction (ground for an injunction) must be substantiated in accordance with Section 86b Paragraph 2 Sentence 4 of the Social Court Act (SGG) in conjunction with Section 920 Paragraph 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO). While the ground for an injunction requires a particular urgency, the claim for an injunction depends on the likely success of the main proceedings.
Based on this, and following a summary examination of the current state of the facts and the legal arguments, the applicant can invoke both a claim for an injunction and grounds for an injunction.
1.) A claim for an injunction has been substantiated.
a) There is no doubt whatsoever about the applicant's fundamental entitlement to benefits under Sections 3 and 3a of the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act (AsylbLG) until the time of the court decision (even according to the respondent's opinion).
b) In the opinion of the court, the applicant is entitled to higher asylum seeker benefits than those already granted to him out of court by the district of Rastatt on 13 February 2026 in accordance with standard benefit level 2 up to and including 31 August 2026.
The provisions of the special needs level applied out of court by the respondent in the applicant's case pursuant to Section 3a Paragraph 1 No. 2 lit. b) of the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act (AsylbLG) and Section 3a Paragraph 2 No. 2 lit. b) of the AsylbLG are, according to the now seemingly unanimous view of social court jurisprudence and legal literature, likely unconstitutional (see, for example, Frerichs in: Schlegel/Voelzke, jurisPK-SGB XII, 4th ed., Section 3a AsylbLG, marginal note 40 with further references). Until the likely unconstitutional provision is declared unconstitutional, the Federal Social Court considers it appropriate to grant asylum seeker benefits based on standard needs level 1 (see Federal Social Court, hearing report of August 11, 2022, B 8/7 AY 1/21 R).
2.) The grounds for issuing the requested preliminary injunction, which are also necessary, are present. In this respect, the court does not follow the comprehensible and coherent response to the application dated February 23, 2026. While it is true that the mere fact that basic social security benefits are affected is not sufficient to generally assume an unavoidable disadvantage (see Federal Constitutional Court, decision of September 19, 2017 – 1 BvIR 1719/17 – juris para. 8), it is also true that higher courts have already rejected the existence of grounds for an injunction in comparable cases for precisely the reasoning to which the respondent appropriately referred on February 23, 2026. The Hamburg State Social Court deemed it reasonable to await the main decision when the monthly benefits granted to the applicant for preliminary relief out of court were only about ten percent lower than the benefits he sought in the preliminary injunction proceedings (see Hamburg State Social Court, decision of January 11, 2007 – L 5 B 531/06 ER AS – juris para. 4). Similarly, the Federal Social Court, in the referral order cited by the applicant, held that the benefits pursuant to Sections 3 and 3a of the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act (AsylbLG) at the level of standard benefit rate 2 were not manifestly insufficient (Federal Social Court, order for suspension and referral of September 26, 2024 – B 8 AY 1/22 R, see Federal Social Court, juris para. 33).
Notwithstanding all the above, grounds for an injunction have been credibly demonstrated in proceedings S 12 AY 1004/26 ER. According to the Social Court of Karlsruhe, in cases where there is no serious doubt as to the existence of a claim for an injunction, the applicant for preliminary relief is only required to meet minimal standards regarding the existence of grounds for the injunction. In the court's opinion, it would be neither right nor equitable to reject the present application for preliminary relief on the grounds that, although the case has an evident prospect of success, it is not sufficiently urgent. The fact that the subsistence benefits withheld from the applicant out of court amount to only 10 percent of the applicant's standard benefit rate, because he was granted €409.00 instead of €455.00, which corresponds to €56.00 too little or 89.89 percent, is insufficient grounds for such a decision. This same legal opinion has already been upheld in other (higher) courts in comparable cases where recipients of asylum seeker benefits appealed to the social courts because the lower asylum seeker benefit authority had granted them benefits only according to the presumably unconstitutionally low standard benefit level 2 and not on the basis of the more favorable standard benefit level 1 (State Social Court of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, 21 January 2021, L 9 AY 27/20 ER; Social Court of Stuttgart, 15 May 2024, S 9 AY 1438/24 ER; Social Court of Stuttgart, 14 June 2024, S 11 AY 2008/24 ER; Social Court of Stuttgart, 27 May 2026, S 9 AY 300/25 ER; Social Court of Karlsruhe, 10 February 2026, S 12 AY). 392/26 ER, mwN).
According to the opinion of this Social Court (Karlsruhe), the urgency of a preliminary injunction is generally assumed if a claim for subsistence benefits, which is highly probable, is currently not being met by a public authority and the threshold for de minimis relief is exceeded. The claim and the grounds for the injunction form a dynamic system due to their functional relationship. They are interrelated, whereby the requirements for the claim are reduced with increasing urgency or severity of the threatened disadvantage (the grounds for the injunction), and vice versa (see Meyer-Ladewig/Keller/Leitherer/Schmidt, Sozialgerichtsgesetz [Social Courts Act], 14th edition, § 86b, marginal notes 27 and 29 with further references). In cases where – as here – there are neither factual nor legal doubts about the claim, the requirements for the grounds for the injunction are therefore very low.
In proceedings S 12 AY 1004/26 ER, the existence of grounds for an injunction, considering the substantive legal prospects of success of the objection of March 13, 2026, arises solely from the date the application for preliminary relief was filed with the Social Court of Karlsruhe, because the applicant has demonstrated, with near certainty, a claim for an injunction due to currently owed basic income support benefits under the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act (AsylbLG). Therefore, in proceedings S 12 AY 1004/26 ER, no additional information or submission of further documents by the applicant was required to demonstrate and substantiate a specific individual shortfall based on verifiable needs. Rather, in view of the undeniably existing claim for an injunction, it sufficed that the applicant for the preliminary injunction essentially based his claim solely on the calculated shortfall resulting from an abstract comparison between the monetary benefits already granted to him out of court and the correct amount of his benefit entitlements under Sections 3 and 3a of the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act (see, in this regard, the Karlsruhe Social Court, decision of February 10, 2026, S 12 AY 392/26 ER). The opposing legal opinion violates the applicant's right to access to justice under Article 19 Paragraph 4 of the Basic Law. The Karlsruhe Social Court violated this principle when it imposed excessively high requirements on the substantiation of the grounds for the provisional granting of basic income support, by additionally requiring, despite the substantiation of a claim for an order due to currently required subsistence benefits, that a concrete individual shortfall be substantiated based on verifiable needs.
Article 19, paragraph 4 of the Basic Law stipulates that recourse to the courts is available if someone's rights are violated by public authorities. Article 19, paragraph 4 of the Basic Law contains a fundamental right to effective and, as far as possible, comprehensive judicial protection against acts of public authority (see BVerfGE 8, 274 <326>; 67, 43 <58>; 104, 220 <231>; 129, 1 <20>; BVerfGE 138, 33 <39 para. 17>; established case law). Outside the direct scope of application of Article 19, paragraph 4 of the Basic Law, the general right to judicial review guarantees access to the courts, the examination of the claim in formal proceedings, and a binding judicial decision (BVerfGE 108, 341 <347 f.>). Citizens have a right to the most effective possible judicial review in all instances made available to them by the rules of procedure (see BVerfGE 40, 272 <275>; 113, 273 <310>; 129, 1 <20>). Courts may not render a legal remedy available under the respective legal system ineffective and allow it to become "empty" for the appellant (see BVerfGE 96, 27 <39>; 104, 220 <232>; 117, 244 <268>). In cases of doubt, the interpretation of a law that grants access to the courts to those seeking legal redress deserves preference (cf. BVerfGE 15, 275 <281 f.>; BVerfG, Decision of the Third Chamber of the First Senate of March 3, 2014 – 1 BvR 3606/13 -, NVwZ 2014, p. 785 <786>; Decision of the First Chamber of the First Senate of July 16, 2015 – 1 BvR 625/15 -, juris, para. 15 f.).
Access to effective preliminary legal protection in matters concerning the subsistence minimum is thwarted by a (state) social court if it makes the issuance of a preliminary injunction subject to excessively high substantiation requirements. A social court imposes excessively high substantiation requirements on the preliminary obligation to grant benefits if, in addition to demonstrating a current entitlement to subsistence-level benefits under the German Social Code, Book II (SGB II), Book XII (SGB XII), or the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act (AsylbLG), it also requires demonstrating the urgent need for action in the individual case. If a person affected by economic hardship has credibly demonstrated, in light of their personal and economic circumstances, an immediate entitlement to subsistence benefits (under the German Social Code, Book II, Book XII, or Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act), there is generally no reasonable basis for requiring them to additionally demonstrate, in order to obtain a preliminary injunction, that they face a specific and immediate threat of "significant disadvantages" within the meaning of Section 86b Paragraph 2 Sentence 2 of the German Social Courts Act while awaiting a (court) main proceeding. With the exception of absolute cases, the specific individual urgency is self-evident if an immediate entitlement to the provision of the socio-cultural minimum subsistence level (under the German Social Code, Book II, Book XII, or Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act) has been credibly demonstrated. Having to wait for several weeks (let alone months or – and this is more the rule – years) for subsistence-securing benefits until the court has decided on the merits almost always constitutes a "significant disadvantage" within the meaning of Section 86 Paragraph 2 Sentence 2 of the Social Court Act (SGG) (cf. Higher Social Court of North Rhine-Westphalia, Decision of 7 April 2020 – L 20 AY 23/20 B ER, BeckRS 2020, 9667, para. 25, beck-online).
The excessively restrictive legal protection stance of some legal scholars (see Burkiczak in: Schlegel/Voelzke, jurisPK-SGG, 2nd ed., § 86b SGG (as of 30.01.2026), para. 475) and social courts (LSG Baden-Württemberg, 28.08.2019, L 7 AY 2735/19 ER-B; LSG Baden-Württemberg, 13.02.2020, – L 7 AY 4273/19 ER-B; LSG North Rhine-Westphalia, 21.02.2022, L 12 AS 1846/21 B ER; LSG Baden-Württemberg, 04.04.2023, L 7 AY 335/23 ER-B; LSG Hesse, 01.06.2023, L 4 SO The opposing view, represented in the decisions of the Baden-Württemberg State Social Court (LSG Baden-Württemberg, 31.10.2023, L 3 AS 2391/23 ER-B; LSG Baden-Württemberg, 23.02.2024, L 3 AS 261/24 ER-B), is indeed gaining ground. However, no constitutionally legitimate reasons are apparent for the current trend among social court judges to postulate excessive substantiation requirements. Rather, in the opinion of the 12th Chamber of the Karlsruhe Social Court, the (implicit) reason for the advance of this judicial practice is solely the quasi-normative force of the practical quantitative overload experienced by a large proportion of the judges at (state) social courts. Correctly, the shortfall in staffing needs of the social courts by the state budget legislature pursuant to Article 20 Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law has less binding force than the substantive social law of the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act, the Social Courts Act, and the fundamental rights affected here under Article 1 Paragraph 1 in conjunction with Article 20 Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law.
The requirement that individuals with currently unmet claims to subsistence benefits must additionally demonstrate the urgency of receiving these benefits in their specific case is presumably a procedural economy calculation by judges, one that is incompatible with the constitutionally mandated level of review required by Article 19 Paragraph 4 of the Basic Law. This procedural economy calculation is likely based on the prevailing judicial perspective that social courts are understaffed, preventing their chambers from effectively scrutinizing the mass administrations in all social court proceedings to the extent of review required by Article 19 Paragraph 4 in conjunction with Article 1 Paragraph 1 and Article 20 Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law when subsistence benefits are at issue. Since the social welfare administrations have to decide on the amount of individual benefit entitlements for several million people receiving basic income support every month, and since a significant portion of these millions of people affected by poverty appeal these often unlawful decisions to social courts, social court judges must, in practice, manage an overwhelming number of factually and legally complex social court cases within a reasonable timeframe. To cope with the sheer volume and complexity of cases on a sustained basis, social court judges are increasingly resorting to restrictive jurisprudence in the form of excessively high substantiation requirements for asserting social rights. These excessive substantiation requirements particularly disadvantage those people living in poverty who neither know nor can foresee what substantiation requirements they would have to meet to prevail in (preliminary) legal proceedings before the social courts.
From the procedural efficiency perspective of a social court judge, the most effective way to manage the large volume of social law (preliminary) legal protection proceedings concerning the socio-cultural subsistence minimum (according to the German Social Code, Book II, Book XII, or Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act) is to reuse the same standardized text modules for as many (preliminary) proceedings as possible. This minimizes the need for time-consuming, case-specific examinations of complex factual and legal issues (regarding the existence of a claim for an injunction) in only a relatively small number of individual cases. In the aforementioned manner... Due to restrictive case law regarding the obligation to substantiate claims, many (urgent applications in) matters concerning the socio-cultural subsistence minimum (according to the German Social Code, Book II, Book XII, or the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act) can be quickly rejected in lower social court practice without significant consideration of the individual case, by means of a blanket reference (to the failure to provide the credible evidence of the grounds for the order supposedly required under Section 86b Paragraph 2 Sentence 2 of the German Social Courts Act). According to the lower court's calculations, the low workload for the social court may not even entail the risk of a contrary decision on appeal, insofar as no appeal is available against the lower court's rejection of the urgent application due to the amount in dispute not meeting the legal requirements.
However, most applicants for urgent relief, who bring matters concerning the socio-cultural subsistence minimum before the social courts (under the German Social Code, Book II, Book XII, or Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act) as laypersons without legal counsel, are unaware of the increasingly restrictive obligation to substantiate their claims in preliminary injunction proceedings imposed by social court judges. Most of these same applicants cannot even comprehend this burden of substantiation themselves, because the necessity (to have to demonstrate, in the urgency of a social court's urgent proceedings, not only the entitlement to current subsistence benefits but also the specific, individual, and immediate need for assistance, by presenting evidence) seems absurd even from the professional perspective of social court judges bound by norms (who prioritize the constitutional framework over their own caseload). Such a requirement for substantiation is certainly not self-evident to a layperson.
People entitled to basic income support cannot afford to finance their own legal advice (regarding the burden of substantiation assumed by the opposing view, which restricts legal protection, due to the grounds for the order) from a lawyer, because legal advice from a lawyer costs significantly more than people below the subsistence level can afford to pursue legal action themselves, given the considerable risk of loss.
The legal advice required under Article 19 Paragraph 4 of the Basic Law (GG) regarding the alleged extent of the substantiation requirements for the existence of grounds for issuing a preliminary injunction after the appointment of a qualified lawyer by way of legal aid is regularly thwarted in practice by the fact that these same people in poverty would first have to find a lawyer to take on their social law mandate in matters of the socio-cultural minimum subsistence level (according to the German Social Code, Book II, Book XII, or Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act), since the social court may generally only appoint a lawyer nominated by the appellant.
Most lawyers generally decline to handle social law cases concerning the granting of the socio-cultural subsistence minimum (according to the German Social Code, Book II, Book XII, or Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act). This is because, from the (essentially business-oriented) perspective of self-employed lawyers, taking on social law cases (let alone specializing in them) is not profitable, even if the case is won in social court. Often, there is a stark disparity between the relatively low statutory legal fees under the German Lawyers' Fees Act (RVG) and the relatively high cost of legal representation (in cases where, on average, the social law issues are relatively complex both in practice and legally, and the clients are typically less socially adaptable and cooperative, or rather "difficult"). Mandates concerning the granting of the socio-cultural subsistence minimum (according to SGB II, SGB XII or AsylbLG) are particularly unprofitable if any legal proceedings are lost despite legal assistance, because then no reimbursement of legal fees is made by the authority according to § 193 SGG and fee claims against the clients in poverty are unenforceable "due to lack of assets".
Even those applicants for preliminary injunctions who are privileged by the presence of a specialist lawyer for social law, such as the applicant in the present case S 12 AY 1004/26 ER, are regularly unable, when asserting their applications for preliminary legal protection for the granting of the socio-cultural subsistence minimum (according to the German Social Code, Book II, Book XII, or Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act), to also demonstrate and substantiate that a concrete individual shortfall exists based on verifiable needs. A specialist lawyer cannot be expected to provide such a substantiated presentation of facts based on a grant of legal aid – in this case, on March 25, 2026. A self-employed lawyer can only devote very few hours of working time to an individual case based on the amount of legal aid granted. His freelance work would be practically impossible from a business perspective in urgent matters concerning the protection of the socio-cultural minimum subsistence level (according to the German Social Code, Book II, Book XII, or Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act) if a recipient of subsistence benefits, represented by a lawyer, were required to provide a concrete, individualized explanation of which specific needs are not being met. This would be so practically burdensome that requiring such a procedural obligation would create virtually insurmountable obstacles for urgent legal protection through the social courts, which would be incompatible with the requirements for the level of legal protection under the aforementioned provisions of the Basic Law and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
III. The applicant may, as requested, claim the preliminary obligation of the respondent by the Social Court of Karlsruhe from the date of the invocation of the court on 16 March 2026.
IV. The court considers it appropriate to limit the duration of its interim order, as requested, until August 31, 2026.
The provisional granting of benefits must be limited in time, since the purpose of preliminary legal protection proceedings is only to eliminate the current emergency (cf. Keller, SGG, § 86b Rn. 35b).
In the proceedings S 12 AY 1004/26 ER, it is not foreseeable whether and, if so, when the applicant's entitlement will cease due to leaving the federal territory.
However, limiting the duration of this interim order for the provisional guarantee of basic benefits pursuant to Section 3a Paragraph 1 No. 1a AsylbLG in conjunction with Section 3a Paragraph 2 No. 1a AsylbLG, in accordance with standard benefit level 1, until August 31, 2026, appears appropriate in proceedings S 12 AY 1004/26 ER for two reasons:
Firstly, the approval period of the (continued) approval notice of 13 February 2026 is limited to 31 August 2026, so that no official decision from the locally responsible district of Rastatt is yet available for the period thereafter.
Secondly, due to the applicant's commencement of residence in the federal territory (on 03.9.2023), the lower asylum seeker benefits authority must examine for the subsequent approval period (from September 2026) whether and, if so, to what extent the applicant will be granted so-called analogous benefits pursuant to Section 2 AsylbLG based on his subsequent 36-month stay in the federal territory according to standard benefit level 1.
V. The decision on costs is based on an analogous application of Section 193 of the Social Court Act (SGG) and the applicant's complete success.
VI. No legal remedy of appeal may be sought against this decision.
Subject to any differing provisions, appeals against decisions of the social courts may be lodged with the Higher Social Court (§ 172 para. 1 SGG). Appeals are excluded in preliminary injunction proceedings if an appeal on the merits would require leave to appeal in the main proceedings (§ 172 para. 3 no. 1 SGG).
This is precisely the case if the value of the subject matter of the appeal does not exceed €750 in an action concerning a monetary benefit or an administrative act directed at such a benefit (§ 144 para. 1 sentence 1 no. 1 SGG), provided that the appeal does not concern recurring or ongoing benefits for more than one year (§ 144 para. 1 sentence 1 no. 2 SGG).
The latter is the case here. The duration of this interim order is limited from March 16, 2026 to August 31, 2026, and thus to five and a half months, so that the respondent's grievance for this period, in view of the monthly difference (of €55) between the benefit amount granted by the authorities on February 13, 2026 and the benefit amount ordered by the court on April 13, 2026, amounts to approximately €300 or significantly less than €750.
