Constitutional Court rules Germany must take in former Afghan judge

Germany must immediately take in a former Afghan judge and his family, the Constitutional Court ruled in an urgent judgement published on Thursday.

The Karlsruhe court refrained from taking the usual course of referring the case back to the administrative court in Berlin-Brandenburg that had previously dealt with the case.

The Constitutional Court made reference to the case’s “special urgency” and “exceptional nature” in its ruling.

The plaintiffs were a former Supreme Court judge in Afghanistan, his wife and their four children. They had lodged an urgent appeal in Karlsruhe with the support of the GFF human rights organization with the aim of securing a provisional visa to enter Germany.

The GFF said they had been waiting in Pakistan for two and a half years.

The German Interior Ministry placed the family on a “bridging list” in 2022, and the Foreign Office made known in July 2025 that there were no reservations on grounds of security. But the Berlin-Brandenburg court rejected the family’s urgent application.

On taking office at the beginning of May, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s broad-based coalition temporarily halted programmes for taking in migrants.

Over recent weeks, a number of flights from Pakistan carrying Afghans with approval for acceptance in Germany have arrived. A total of almost 1,900 Afghans are currently awaiting acceptance in Germany under various programmes.

They include staff who worked for German officials in Afghanistan during the NATO-led deployment there. German officials left Afghanistan ahead of the renewed Taliban takeover more than four years ago.