Details

Second seminar on the “introduction into German law” designed for Arabic-speaking refugees with a legal background in Bonn

Published: October 23, 2017
Veronika Keller-Engels (at the centre), IRZ General Director, and Mohamed Montasser Abidi (left), Head of Section for Northern Africa / Middle East, welcoming the particpants of the seminar
Veronika Keller-Engels (at the centre), IRZ General Director, and Mohamed Montasser Abidi (left), Head of Section for Northern Africa / Middle East, welcoming the particpants of the seminar

Based on the first positive experience from last year, the IRZ together with the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, organised a second seminar on the “introduction into German law” designed for Arabic-speaking refugees with a legal background in Bonn on 10 and 11 October 2017.

The objective of the follow-up event was to provide information for the Arabic-speaking refugees and facilitate their integration. To this end, the IRZ organised an introduction into German law and the fundamentals of the asylum system in Germany.

The invited group was made up of partly very experienced Syrian and Iraqi judges, lawyers, law professionals, civil servants and young law graduates.

The IRZ was supported by the experienced lecturers Uwe Stark, a judge at the local court of Siegen, Dr. Arnd Weishaupt, a presiding judge at the higher regional court of Düsseldorf, and Jens Dieckmann, a lawyer specializing in asylum and criminal law from the law firm Becher & Dieckmann.

On the first day of the seminar, the participants were welcomed by the IRZ General Director Veronika Keller-Engels and the Head of Section for Northern Africa / Middle East, Mohamed Montasser Abidi.

At the two-day event, the participants dealt with key questions of refugees’ residence in Germany. The topics under discussion were political asylum, subsidiary status, exceptional leave to remain, departure, subsequent immigration of family members and general procedural issues.

Further issues dealt with were:

  • The fundamentals of the German constitutional law and the importance of fundamental rights,
  • the organisation of the courts in Germany including general structures and procedural principles and
  • the fundamentals of general civil law, social law and German criminal law.

It was particularly important for the participants of the seminar to learn about opportunities of working as legal professionals in Germany.

Just like in the previous year, the event met with a very positive response by all parties involved. The participants were very interested and committed and discussed many practical issues from their every-day life.

The IRZ will continue and follow up on this project due to the unanimously positive feed-back.