Top court defends Afghan woman’s right to resettlement in Germany

On Friday, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled in favour of an Afghan mother and her two minor sons, saying their case must be re-examined.

The woman had initially been accepted under a refugee scheme set up by the previous German government.

The case potentially has life-changing implications for hundreds of Afghan refugees who were promised visas in Germany under the previous government.

The case was brought by an Afghan woman who wants entry visas for herself and her two underage sons. She is currently in Pakistan.

They, along with more than 600 other Afghan refugees, had received a commitment from Germany in 2021, which was withdrawn at the end of 2025. The Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg had recently denied a claim to the issuance of visas.

This decision has now been overturned by the Second Senate in Karlsruhe. The court said that the Interior Ministry did not have the authority to simply revoke admissions for Afghans across the board.

READ ALSO: Berlin urged to help stranded Afghans ‘before it’s too late’

Instead it could reassess individual cases, and in this case individual circumstances needed to be taken into account.

“Today I am really happy – I can hardly describe how relieved I am,” the Afghan plaintiff, currently in the city of Peshawar in northern Pakistan, told the German Press Agency. “It was a very long, desperate wait.”

The Federal Constitutional Court referred the Afghan woman’s case back to the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg, which will now reassess her case individually.

According to the decision, the Higher Administrative Court will “have to assume” that Germany is constitutionally obliged to continue supporting the woman and her children in Pakistan until a visa is issued or until the Federal Ministry of the Interior has declared a constitutional departure from the admission programmes.

Elaha Hakim of the Airbridge Kabul initiative set up to help those affected welcomed the ruling.

“We now call on the government to make good on their obligation to examine these cases individually and to finally give the families the protection they deserve,” Hakim said in a statement.

Broken promises

Those concerned had either worked with German armed forces in Afghanistan during the war against the Taliban, or were judged to be at particular risk from the Taliban after its return to power in 2021. This second category included rights activists, journalists and their families.

After the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the German government, then under the traffic light coalition, promised that people from this group would be admitted to Germany.

Many have been waiting in Pakistan for months or years for their entry visas.

In May 2025, the black-red federal government had stopped the admission programs. In December 2025, the Federal Ministry of the Interior then withdrew the admission commitments of all Afghan protection seekers, declaring that there was no longer any political interest in taking them in.

According to the German Residence Act, foreigners can be granted a residence permit for international law or urgent humanitarian reasons.

But under the leadership of conservative politician Alexander Dobrindt, Germany’s Interior Ministry has been focused more on pushing Afghans and other asylum-seekers out of the country.

READ ALSO:

The Greens called the decision a “painful defeat” for Dobrindt. Speaking to the news agency AFP, Green Party interior politician Marcel Emmerich said, “It seems that recently, for his department, the headlines about tough migration policy mattered more than the promise of protection under the rule of law. Karlsruhe is now putting an end to this arbitrariness.”

For his part, Alexander Dobrindt said he sees no need for action after the decision from Karlsruhe for the time being. 

With reporting by AFP and DPA.