The Constitutional Court suspends the freeze on family reunification for Syrians
A ruling issued by the highest judicial authority in Austria has allowed the reunification of families of Syrians undergoing asylum withdrawal procedures, after it was deemed that the previously practiced approach violates the constitutional right to family life.
The background dates back to the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria on December 8, 2024, which prompted the Austrian government and Interior Minister Gerhard Karner to initiate thousands of procedures to revoke asylum status from Syrians who had relied on the previous regime as a reason for fleeing. As a result, family reunification was automatically suspended for those affected by these measures. According to the press report, there were still more than 8,900 ongoing asylum revocation procedures at the beginning of January.
The case on which the ruling was based relates to a request made by the wife and minor children of a Syrian who obtained asylum in 2023 through the Austrian embassy in Amman, but the competent authorities deemed the granting of asylum unlikely and refused their entry into the country. Later, after the process of withdrawing the father's asylum began, the Federal Administrative Court rejected the family's complaint.
The family then appealed to the Constitutional Court, which concluded that the mere existence of a withdrawal procedure for asylum is not legally sufficient to prevent family reunification. The court acknowledged the public interest in restricting family reunification in certain cases, but emphasized the need to balance that with the fundamental right to family, and considered that preventing entry without providing an effective means of legal challenge constitutes a violation of this right.
Based on the decision, family members will be able to resume their procedures before the Federal Administrative Court. In contrast, the Ministry of the Interior announced that it is reviewing the grounds of the ruling, while also confirming that the decision does not automatically lead to a comprehensive lifting of the family reunification freeze.
The decision sparked varied political reactions, as the Austrian Freedom Party criticized the ruling and considered it a weakening of asylum and security policy, demanding a radical tightening on this issue.