Federal Constitutional Court - Press office -

Press release no. 6/2011 of 26 January 2011

Order of 25 January 2011 – 2 BvR 2015/09 –

Termination of proceedings regarding the repatriation of asylum-seekers 
according to the Dublin II Regulation


On 28 October 2010, the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional 
Court held an oral hearing about a constitutional complaint concerning 
the denial of a temporary injunction against the deportation order to 
Greece issued to an asylum-seeker on the basis of Council Regulation 
(EC) No 343/2003 of 18 February 2003 (the so-called Dublin II 
Regulation). The Regulation determines which European Union Member State 
is responsible for examining an asylum application. The Regulation 
provides the Member States with the possibility, known as the 
sovereignty clause, of transferring an asylum application to the 
national procedure in derogation of the provisions on responsibility. On 
the instruction of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Federal 
Office for Migration and Refugees now made use of this possibility in 
the complainant’s favour, annulling the decision by which it ordered the 
complainant’s deportation to Greece. Furthermore, in all cases in which 
a transfer of third-country nationals to Greece is a consideration, the 
Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, until 12 January 2012, will 
invoke the sovereignty clause, will not transfer the persons affected to 
Greece and will conduct the asylum proceedings. The complainant has 
declared the proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court 
settled. By the order issued yesterday, the proceedings have been 
terminated. The Second Senate did not see a reason for continuing the 
proceedings in order to clarify questions of national constitutional law 
which are of a merely abstract nature and not of current interest. 

Immediately after the oral hearing, the Senate had proposed to the 
Federal Ministry of the Interior to examine whether the proceedings 
could be settled by invoking the sovereignty clause. As the 
transnational problems arising from the excessive strain on a European 
Union Member State’s asylum system are to be dealt with mainly at 
European Union level, and with a view to the efforts, which had been 
convincingly described by the Federal Minister of the Interior in the 
oral hearing, to redress shortcomings of the Greek asylum system in the 
near future, the Senate regarded a termination of the proceedings 
without a ruling as adequate. These considerations still carry weight. 
Due to the instruction now given by the Federal Ministry of the Interior 
to generally invoke the sovereignty clause if Greece is responsible 
according to the Dublin II Regulation, a decision of the Federal 
Constitutional Court is no longer required. 


This press release is also available in the original german version.