Two law experts say Merkel acting outside the Constitution

Many asylum-seekers came to Germany at the invitation of Chancellor Merkel - as they saw it - and even carried her picture, hoping to win her help with their problems.

"Merkel's solo was an act of self-empowerment"

The former president of the Constitutional Court of North Rhine-Westphalia, Michael Bertrams has accused Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) of possible breach of the constitution in the refugee policy.
 
 "Going it alone has let hundreds of thousands of refugees into the country. That was very compassionate, but came with no apparent plan," Bertram writes in an article for the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger".

Merkel's approach raises the constitutional question of whether she had ever legitimized it. "In our representative democracy, all key decisions are - especially those with impact on the budget - in the hands of elected MPs," said Bertram, with regard to decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court on the requirement of parliamentary approval for the deployment of armed German troops abroad.

Without parliamentary consent, such missions cannot be carried out. "Thus, if the posting of several hundred soldiers to Mali can be done only with the consent of the Bundestag, then this is certainly necessary when it comes to receiving hundreds of thousands of refugees," said Bertram.

"Merkel's solo [decision] was therefore an act of self-empowerment," he stressed, and spoke of a "high-handed Chancellor-democracy." Bertrams began in 1994, by 2013 was the head of the NRW Constitutional Court in Münster.

Constitutional law calls for border protection

Sharp criticism of German Chancellor Angela Merkel also comes from the constitutional lawyer Ulrich Battistelli. "The Federal Republic must effectively protect her borders when an excessive demand for the inclusion of foreigners threatens," demanded the legal scholars of the Humboldt University Berlin in the "Nordwest-Zeitung".

"I still have the Chancellor's New Year's speech in my ear. She has said that immigration has been good for each country. But it is here not about immigration, but asylum seekers. Immigration and asylum are two different pairs of shoes," Battistelli said. "The asylum procedure is not an instrument of immigration policy," underlined the constitutional lawyer.

Anyone arriving from a Member State of the European Union or another safe country of origin, could not, according to the Basic Law invoke the right of asylum, Battistelli said. "This scheme is at the heart of the Dublin Treaty. This system does not work anymore. Therefore the Federal Republic is obliged to protect itself from uncontrolled immigration. Without border controls, not only is the welfare state permanently unhinged, but also the rule of law," emphasized the constitutional lawyer.

For the decision on whether immigration would take place in Germany on a large scale or not, the Bundestag must meet, said Battistelli. "That can not be decided alone by the federal government." Merkel put up a European solution and the common management of external borders. But that seems not to be working. "If you can not find a solution at the European level, the federal government is legally obliged to ensure functioning checks at the borders of Germany."