With its ruling of 22 May 2026 (VG 28 L 270/26 A), the court ordered the Federal Republic of Germany to allow a person to cross the border and to initiate the mandatory Dublin procedure to determine the responsible member state. The man had requested asylum at the Gubinek border crossing (Brandenburg) on 22/23 March 2026. The Federal Police nevertheless immediately pushed him back to Poland, stating that he had not expressed an asylum request at any point.

The court did not accept this account. It assessed the circumstances of the border crossing and the applicant's  declaration as credible, and found the authority's official statements to be incomplete. The court made clear: anyone who expresses in any form a wish for protection is making an asylum request in the legal sense. In such cases, a pushback is impermissible – a Dublin procedure must be initiated without exception.

Equal Rights Beyond Borders supported the applicant in asserting his rights.

Matthias Lehnert, the lawyer in the case, states: "When an asylum request is made, a Dublin procedure must be conducted – that is the law, not a matter of discretion. The federal government's pushback policy only works if this right is simply ignored at the border. This ruling shows that doing so is unlawful."

"Segregation is a question of evidence. The Berlin Administrative Court, in its ruling, aligns itself with the case law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, both of which recognise that people seeking protection who are pushed back at the border have almost no means of proving what actually happened. A request is enough to trigger procedural obligations – and in cases of doubt, a request must be assumed," says Robert Nestler, Executive Director of Equal Rights Beyond Borders.

Equal Rights Beyond Borders considers this case to be far from isolated. When people are systematically pushed back at the border, those affected have almost no way to enforce their rights – and a claim that no asylum request was made is nearly impossible to refute without legal support.

Link to the ruling: https://shorturl.at/Sj5pE
Contact: Equal Rights Beyond Borders e.V., press@equal-rights.org