December 19, 2002	Thursday	Shawwal 14, 1423

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KARLSRUHE (Germany) Dec 18: Germany’s top court on Wednesday knocked down the country’s new immigration law in a ruling backing the conservative opposition’s challenge to the legislation.

The court ruled that the parliamentary procedures in the passage of the law last March did not conform to the law.

The verdict means that Social Democrat-Greens government and the conservative Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union opposition will have to go back and rework the legislation.

The law would have taken effect on January 1 to try to liberalise and simplify rules on a wide range of immigration-related issues like residency, work permits, refugees and political asylum.

The legislation cleared the Bundestag national parliament, and then the Bundesrat, representing the federal states last March. But the Bundesrat vote became controversial when one of the state’s votes was counted as a “yes” although the state had issued a split vote.—dpa