The use of Bavarian state police at the border with Austria is against the law, a legal assessment has found. Bavaria reintroduced controls by state police in July.
The legal assessment commissioned by the Green party in German Parliament considers border checks by state forces as conducted in Bavaria as against the law. "The introduction of a Bavarian border police undermines the division of powers and the mandate of the federal police to secure the border," the assessment states.
Providing state police with the jurisdiction of border controls was an unconstitutional expansion of power by the Bavarian government, the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper quotes the legal briefing.
Since 2008, the Bavarian state police has been responsible to control cross-border air traffic. This responsibility was extended in 2018 to include general cross-border controls such as land crossings.
The legal experts who issued the assessment warned that the German Federal Constitutional Court objected double jurisdictions and that Bavaria did not have the legislative powers to change border security law that includes the regulation of passport checks.
Border checks despite Schengen
German Justice Minister Katharina Barley of the Social Democrats demanded that border controls be stopped altogether. Germany had introduced checks at the height of the refugee crisis in 2015, suspending the Schengen system of open-border, passport-free travel.
"If we want to have a functioning internal market, then we have to secure the outer borders of the EU and keep the internal borders between member states open," Barley told the Funke media group.
Parliamentary State Secretary Stephan Mayer (CSU), in response, rejected the proposal. "A Europe without border controls is only possible once the outer borders are secured effectively," Mayer said in an interview with German daily Welt. This, he said, was not yet the case, pointing to Sweden, France, Austria and Norway which had recently extended their border controls.
From January to August this year, more than 3,800 persons were returned from the Bavarian border due to border checks. At the same time, more than 7,400 illegal entries were determined. For Stephan Mayer, the numbers indicate that the controls are needed. "[Interior Minister] Horst Seehofer was completely right when he decided to extend checks in Bavaria by another six months."
Seehofer announced two weeks ago that German border controls would be extended until May 2019.