The Paradox of Docket Control: Empowering Judges, Frustrating Refugees

This article focuses on the gradual expansion of docket control mechanisms in refugee (or asylum) law proceedings in Germany. It shows that granting judges more and more control over their asylum dockets was a central policy tool repeatedly employed by German politicians over the decades in the hope that it would stem the flow of refugees into the courts and ultimately make it easier (and faster) to deport failed claimants. Politicians were much more willing to limit access to asylum appeals than to appeals in general administrative law, illustrating how the pressure to come up with solutions for the flood of asylum applications overcame established norms for maintaining equal access to the courts for all claimants. Surprisingly, the Constitutional Court remained largely unaffected by these efforts except for a paradigm shift that occurred with the amendment of the constitutional asylum provision in 1993.