Special procedural guarantees

Germany

Country Report: Special procedural guarantees Last updated: 06/04/23

Author

Paula Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik and Marlene Stiller

Adequate support during the interview

The BAMF does not have specialised units dealing with vulnerable groups. According to the BAMF, all case workers complete the EUAA training module on ‘Interviewing Vulnerable Persons’.[1] If an applicant or a Federal State authority submits information to the BAMF that indicates vulnerability (such as medical records or information about specific physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments), such information is transferred to the case worker in charge who can decide to take measures such as allocate more time for the interview, appoint an interpreter of a specific gender or allow the person to bring a trusted person of their choice to the interview.[2]

For specific groups of vulnerable persons, the BAMF employs ‘special officers’ (Sonderbeauftragte) responsible for interviews and decisions on claims by applicants with special needs. Special officers also advise their colleagues in dealing with vulnerable applicants and are contact persons for specialised counselling services and psycho-social centres.[3] Staff members who become special officers must complete a training module for the specialisation they want to achieve. In addition, they follow the EASO training modules for their specialisation.[4] Training covers both the identification and in the treatment of vulnerable persons.[5] According to the BAMF, continuous training is offered for specific topics in the realm of the special officers’ responsibilities.[6] The BAMF guidelines stipulate that the following cases shall be handled in a particularly sensitive manner and, if necessary, by specially-trained decision-makers:[7]

  • Unaccompanied children;
  • Victims of gender-specific prosecution;
  • Victims of human trafficking; and
  • Victims of torture and traumatised asylum seekers.

As of January 2021, a total of 747 BAMF employees had one or more roles as special officers, amounting to a total of 1,204 special officer roles. This corresponds to roughly a third of full-time equivalent positions allocated to the first instance procedure (see Number of staff and nature of the first instance authority). The distribution among areas of responsibilities was the following: Unaccompanied children (433), victims of gender-specific persecution (242) traumatised persons and victims of torture (283), victims of trafficking (246).[8] More recent information is not available.

If it becomes evident during the interview that an asylum seeker belongs to one of these groups, the officer conducting the interview is obliged to consult a special officer, in addition to notifying the reception centre.[9] A note has to be added to the file on how the officers are planning to proceed, particularly if the special officer takes over the case as a result of this consultation. According to recent information provided by the government, there is an obligation in cases of unaccompanied minors for special officers to take over responsibility for the asylum procedures. In other cases of other vulnerable groups, the special officer has to be consulted and there are two options for further procedures: either the special officer adopts an advisory role or they take over responsibility for the procedure.[10] However, the BAMF does not record the number of cases in which special officers are consulted or in which procedures are delegated to special officers.[11]

Lawyers have reported that the introduction of special officers has led to some improvement in the handling of ‘sensitive’ cases, but there have also been examples of cases in which indications of trauma and even explicit references to torture did not lead to special officers being consulted. It has also been reported that the involvement of special officers does not automatically result in a better quality of interviews.[12]

The BAMF also has special officers for security issues. They are responsible for a whole range of issues and should be involved in asylum procedures whenever indications arise for instances of ‘extremism, terrorism, criminality, human trafficking, war crimes, crimes against humanity and smuggling of human beings’.[13] The special officers for security issues act as contact points between the BAMF and other authorities, but they do not necessarily take part in interviews or take over responsibility of particular asylum procedures.

 

Exemption from special procedures

The German Asylum Act exempts neither unaccompanied children nor persons with special procedural guarantees from the airport procedure, despite an express obligation under the recast APD to provide for such exemptions under certain conditions.[14] It also makes no reference to ‘adequate support’ which should be provided to those requiring special procedural guarantees.[15]

With the exception of applications lodged by minors, there are no detailed available figures on the profile of applicants in airport procedures. In 2022, 72 minors were subjected to the airport procedure, representing 20.7% of all applicants in such procedures.[16] This is higher than in 2021and 2020, where there were respectively 26 and 13 minors in the airport procedure, representing around 13% of all applicants in 2021 and 9% in 2020.[17] Information as to whether some of them were unaccompanied minors is not available. However, in practice, it seems that the BAMF contacts the youth welfare office (Jugendamt) in cases involving unaccompanied minors. Officials of the youth welfare office come to the airport facility to conduct an age assessment and unaccompanied minors are usually allowed entry into the territory for the purpose of the asylum procedure.[18] That said, the detention facility at Frankfurt/Main Airport contains dedicated rooms for unaccompanied boys and girls.[19] In any case, the exemption does not apply to children who arrive at the airport together with their parents (86 airport procedures were initiated for children in 2019).[20]

The BAMF has reported that, where a vulnerability has been identified prior to the application process (e.g. according to the report of the Federal Police, through information gathered by the State or by a legal representative) this will be taken into consideration.[21] This includes appointing a specialised caseworker and/or an interpreter of a specific gender; as well as procedural guarantees during interviews such as longer breaks. Moreover, the BAMF stated that vulnerable persons receive the procedural guarantees to which they are entitled from the Federal state (e.g. medical care, possible psychological care, adequate accommodation and meals etc.). In practice, however, the airport procedure is also applied to other vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, persons with acute medical conditions and victims of rape or other forms of violence. It has also been reported that the BAMF conducts interviews with pregnant women lasting several hours in the airport facilities.[22]

 

 

 

[1] BAMF, Die Identifizierung vulnerabler Personen im Asylverfahren. Umsetzung in der Praxis des Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge, June 2022, available in German at https://bit.ly/3Z7JHCU, 16.

[2] BAMF, Die Identifizierung vulnerabler Personen im Asylverfahren. Umsetzung in der Praxis des Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge, June 2022, available in German at https://bit.ly/3Z7JHCU, 19.

[3] Information provided by the BAMF, 9 March 2023.

[4] BAMF, Die Identifizierung vulnerabler Personen im Asylverfahren. Umsetzung in der Praxis des Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge, June 2022, available in German at https://bit.ly/3Z7JHCU, 16.

[5] BAMF, Die Identifizierung vulnerabler Personen im Asylverfahren. Umsetzung in der Praxis des Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge, June 2022, available in German at https://bit.ly/3Z7JHCU, 16.

[6] Information provided by the BAMF, 9 March 2023.

[7] BAMF, DA-Asyl (Dienstanweisung Asylverfahren) – Belehrungen, 2010, 139.

[8] The government notes that the figures cannot be added since some officers may have qualified in more than one area; furthermore, for unknown reasons branch offices did not report the number of their special officers if this was lower than 3; Federal Government, Reply to parliamentary question by The Left, 19/10733, 6 June 2019, 7-8.

[9] BAMF, Die Identifizierung vulnerabler Personen im Asylverfahren. Umsetzung in der Praxis des Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge, June 2022, available in German at https://bit.ly/3Z7JHCU, 20.

[10] Federal Government, Reply to parliamentary question by The Left, 19/32684, 15 October 2021, 19-22.

[11] BAMF, response to information request, e-mail from ‘Zentrale Ansprechstelle’ (central contact point), 28 August 2019.

[12] See e.g. FRA, Monthly data collection: Highlights – Migrants with disabilities, August 2016, available at: http://bit.ly/2kWFgLT, 14.

[13] BAMF, Entscheiderbrief (newsletter for decision-makers) 4/2020, 1.

[14] Articles 25(6)(b) and 24(3) recast APD.

[15] Article 24(3) recast APD.

[16] Federal Government, Response to parliamentary question by The Left, 20/5709, 17 February 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3K3w3MX, 34.

[17] Federal Government, Response to parliamentary question by The Left, 20/2309, 17 June 2022, 39, 19/20377, 23 July 2020, 4; 19/28109, 2021, 20 March 2021, 37.

[18] Information provided by an attorney-at-law, 31 August 2020.

[19] ECRE, Airport procedures in Germany Gaps in quality and compliance with guarantees, April 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/2QgOmAH.

[20] Federal Government, Reply to parliamentary question by The Left, 19/18498, 2 April 2020, 44.

[21] Information provided by the BAMF, 11 September 2020.

[22] Ibid.

Table of contents

  • Statistics
  • Overview of the legal framework
  • Overview of the main changes since the previous report update
  • Asylum Procedure
  • Reception Conditions
  • Detention of Asylum Seekers
  • Content of International Protection
  • ANNEX I – Transposition of the CEAS in national legislation