A court in Berlin has ruled the German authorities acted unlawfully when they turned away three Somali asylum seekers from a train station at the country's eastern border after they tried to enter from Poland.

The court said that under European Union rules known as the Dublin Regulation, which govern who has responsibility for processing asylum applications, the applicants could not demand to enter Germany beyond the border crossing, but that their applications should have been processed by Germany at or close to the border.

The ruling was a rebuff to the tough migration stance promised by new Chancellor Friedrich Merz when his party, the Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union, or CDU-CSU, emerged as the largest following the country's federal election in February.

Immigration was one of the dominant election issues, and played a significant part in the far-right Alternative for Germany party taking the second-highest share of the vote nationwide, with particular success in the east of the country, where this incident occurred.

"You can see how dysfunctional the whole asylum system is," said Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, defending the stance of the CDU-CSU-led coalition government.

"The numbers are too high. We are sticking to our practice," he continued, claiming that the ruling only related to a specific case, rather than the issue in general.

Last month, the EU's executive, the European Commission, put forward an idea for a program that would allow member states to reject asylum applications by people who have passed through what is designated a "safe" third country on their way to the bloc, but the idea has drawn heavy criticism and not yet been formally adopted by the European Parliament or national governments.

Merz's government authorized the rejection of undocumented migrants at Germany's borders, which upset some of its neighbors, and Felix Banaszak, leader of the country's Green Party, likened the CDU-CSU's behavior to that of United States President Donald Trump.

"It is underhand and very concerning if people keep trying to test the legal framework to the limit and are also willing to break the law in the process," he said, adding that conservatives in the coalition were trying to "push through their agenda in Trump manner" with provocative statements and orders that had no legal validity. Actions that undermine European law, he continued, "are not helpful, but only create chaos".

Jan van Aken, from the Left Party, said the government had been found out by targeting the vulnerable, because "it needs scapegoats" rather than addressing real issues.

"The government has to finally deal with the real problems: a rent limit, an active investment policy, and a wealth tax," he said.

julian@mail.chinadailyuk.com