Photo: DPAThe opposition has accused the government of overstretching the courts and endangering the integration of refugees, after a rise in appeals on rejected asylum cases. Figures released by the federal government and published by the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) on Monday show that the backlog of asylum appeals waiting to go through the courts has risen dramatically over the course of 2017. By the end of July, 283,000 appeals against asylum decision were pending, almost double the number than for the end of 2016. Some 146,000 new appeals were lodged in the first five months of this year, almost as many as the 175,000 that were lodged in the whole of 2016. Meanwhile the court system is working through the appeals at a much slower pace - only 39,000 decisions were made between January and May.

Source: The Local September 18, 2017 10:18 UTC