Consequences of lawsuit against Schengen visa denial

As a foreign citizen you have no automatic right to be allowed access to a country. The authorities decided on a case by case basis if you should be allowed temporary or permanent access based upon:

• Your personal circumstances at that time
• The information and documents you have provided as part of that application
• Any information which they might have about you, which could include previous travel, criminal activities, previous dealings with authorities etc. (Some of this may be restricted only to their country, or include other countries.
• etc

If you have been denied a visa, and your appeal has been rejected, then it depends upon the country if you can take it further or not.

Here is a link to information about Germany visa denial: https://addis-abeba.diplo.de/blob/1605276/d65996685271057d16f24b6608dea951/leaflet-remonstration-data.pdf

It states

Upon receiving an official letter refusing your visa application (refusal letter or a decision on your remonstration) you have the possibility to file a suit with the administrative court in Berlin (Verwaltungsgericht Berlin). The instructions on the right to appeal are included in the refusal letter regarding Schengen visa. The court will investigate whether you have a claim for being granted a visa, and whether the refusal violates your legal rights.

For this you will need a German lawyer who specialises in immigration. This will be expensive and take time.

The document also states:

According to information of the administrative court Berlin of January 2015, the average period of a lawsuit in visa matters is about 10 months.

Also, don't forget that even if you are granted a visa this does not mean that you will be admitted into the country. Immigration at the border are able to deny you entry. You will then have to follow a similar process (albeit an expedited one) to appeal.

But if you are successful in suing and being granted a visa then there is no reason why this should have a negative impact on any future travel plans you may have to the Schengen area. Your application will be judged on a case by case basis, although they would see that you were successful in receiving a visa previously.

It might also depend on the decision itself. The process you describe reminds me of the way it works in France (where you have to appeal to the Commission de recours contre les décisions de refus de visa d'entrée en France first, as opposed to going to court directly as you would in many countries).

There, an administrative judge has two options if they find an appeal has merits:

• cancelling the decision and asking the relevant authority to reconsider it
• ordering the relevant authority to do something specific (in this case: issue a visa)

I have heard cases of people being refused a visa again in the first case (but on other grounds so as not to run afoul of the court decision). A lawyer might help you determine how strong your position is depending on the exact nature of the decision.