Overview
- Publishing three decisions on October 28, the Federal Constitutional Court found that arrests for deportation detention generally require prior judicial authorization.
- The court held that any exceptional arrest without a prior order must be followed by a judge’s decision immediately, rejecting routine administrative reasons such as a court’s closing time.
- Judges ruled that earlier outcomes by local and regional courts violated the complainants’ fundamental rights by refusing to declare the pre‑authorization arrests unlawful.
- The panel emphasized that even short delays do not erase harm, recognizing an ongoing legal interest in a finding of unlawfulness after post‑hoc authorization.
- In two Dublin-transfer cases involving Eritrean nationals from 2017 and 2019, the court noted there was no German legal basis for the arrests before a specific rule took effect in August 2019.