ECHR asylum seeker rulings 'are an existential threat to democracy'

Western democracies are under threat unless tougher ECHR asylum reforms are implemented, a top German judge has warned.

Hans-Jürgen Papier, who served as the president of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany from 2002 to 2010, told The Times that the current legislation from the European Convention of Human Rights had led to 'uncontrolled and unconditional immigration' and is damaging the public's trust in democratic institutions.

Papier added that rulings from the ECHR and national courts had created an 'ossified and rigid' body of law which is 'endangering the existence of western democracies'.

The former judge, who is now emeritus professor of public law at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich said the main problem was an 'ever deeper reaching and ever more closely meshed agglomeration' of asylum rulings which now seemed to 'settle like mildew over the states' political power to take action'.

This, Papier says, has widened the right to asylum into a 'de facto right to immigration through the back door'.