The CDU’s ideas about compulsory vaccination are now also taking shape. AsktheState.de demands from the Federal President the publication of data to pardons. Ronen Steinke deplores a "new class justice" in his book.
Topic of the day
Corona – Vaccination obligation: WamS (Nikolaus Doll) and mirror.de report on key points for compulsory vaccination, which are being discussed in the CDU parliamentary group in the Bundestag. According to the court, there should be no blanket obligation to vaccinate, but rather a flexible obligation that takes effect whenever a particularly dangerous variant is identified. "Compulsory vaccination would only make sense if particularly dangerous virus variants were imminent – and if suitable vaccines were available at the same time. If one of the two does not apply, a vaccination obligation would be little purposeful", the health-political speaker of the union parliamentary group, Tino worry, is quoted. In addition, there should be a "narrow, clear Giving a time limit to the compulsory vaccination.
In the Constitution blog put law professor Ute Sacksofsky and law professor Klaus F. Garditz continued their discussion on the extent to which the subjective self-image of those concerned must be taken into account when assessing the constitutionality of mandatory vaccination. Sacksofsky believes that the function of the protection of fundamental rights as a protection of minorities is inadmissibly shortened if the question of how serious an impairment of fundamental rights is judged solely from the perspective of the majority. Garditz, on the other hand, believes that the fact that someone feels part of an oppressed minority does not give rise to a relevant need for protection or justification for restricting the freedoms of third parties in order to protect this feeling. In the weighting of goods in the proportionality test, the specific protective function of the respective fundamental right and the value of the goods at stake in each case must be taken into account, but these are inherent in the constitution and cannot be determined unilaterally and subjectively.
Legal policy
Corona – Rights of Convalescents: The Scientific Service of the Bundestag has doubts whether it satisfies constitutional requirements that the RKI can recently determine on its own authority how long someone can invoke the recovered status after a covid infection. It is not obvious why at least a decree by the federal government is not necessary here, after all, it is about the exercise of fundamental rights. IMAGE.de (Ralf Schuler/Filipp Piatov) reports.
Assisted suicide: Jost Muller-Neuhof (tagesspiegel).en) analyzes and evaluates the inter-factional initiative presented last week to regulate assisted suicide. According to it it is to become in principle again punishable to help others with the Suizid professionally. Only if compulsory medical examinations and further compulsory counseling have been carried out and a waiting period has been observed should assisted suicide be unpunishable for the assisting party. This is probably not the regulation that the judges in Karlsruhe had envisioned, Muller-Neuhof says. The draft seems patronizing in its morality and belongs to a time that is past. It is no more than a defused version of the old Section 217 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) objected to by the BVerfG.
Justice
VG Berlin – Pardons of the Federal President: The Internet platform "FragdenStaat.de" has filed a complaint against the Office of the Federal President with the Administrative Court in Berlin. The office is to release data on pardons by the Federal President. The jurist Vivian Kube explains in the constitution blog, What the lawsuit is specifically about, and what the right to clemency is generally about. It argues thereby for a change of the legal framework for pardons and the appropriate information politics. The idea of a secretly exercised right of mercy, which on the one hand hovers above all constitutional principles, but on the other hand has considerable effects on the persons concerned, seems to be more than out of time.
Social imbalance of the judiciary? Christian Rath reported for LTO the new book of the journalist Ronen Steinke "Before the law are not all equal" read. Steinke describes a "new class justice" and attests to a social imbalance in many criminal law decisions, in which the rich are treated better than the poor. Specifically u.a. about the granting of public defender’s office, probation decisions, daily sentences, substitute custodial sentences, U custody, fines, deals, white-collar and misdemeanor crimes, and drug offenses. Steinke has shown that criminal justice is overburdened with some social problems or cannot deal with them adequately, Rath writes, but this is not always an expression of social inequality, often it is probably more necessary to look for possible solutions in social policy/social work than in judicial policy.
BVerfG: After the Federal Constitutional Court still enjoyed great recognition and reputation worldwide at the end of the last century, its international importance seems to have waned in recent years, states American law professor Russell Miller in the FAZ objection (in English). One reason could be that – even though the court is making more and more efforts to provide English-language translations – most of the decisions and, above all, the scientific commentaries and respective current press reports are still only available in German. In addition, the global influence of the BVerfG seems to have diminished as it moves deeper and deeper into the jurisprudence on European integration. Miller also sees a "stylistic problem at the court, which could be a contributing cause to a waning worldwide interest in the Constitutional Court. The decisions are long and overly technical and lack "the uplifting, inspiring quality that is the expressive power of justice" address.
BVerfG on homeopathy in animals: Like LTO reports, animal welfare practical woman with urgent requests against the veterinary medicament law at the Federal Constitutional Court, which came at the end of last week into force, failed. According to the new regulation, animal healers and animal owners are prohibited from using human homeopathics on animals. The Karlsruhe judges did not consider the disadvantages of special weight necessary for an emergency decision to be given, since the applicants also have other sources of income.
BVerwG on the Fehmarn Tunnel: The Federal Administrative Court has rejected an urgent application by the "Action Alliance against a Fixed Fehmarn Belt Crossing".V." The court rejected the petition to stop further construction of the tunnel through an area with protected reefs. mirror.de reports on the urgent decision, for which no reasons have yet been given. Ten days ago, the court had asked the authorities to leave the work pending the urgent decision.
BFH to tax on marriage settlement: Spouses who have concluded a settlement agreement in the event of divorce do not have to pay taxes on the corresponding payments. The Federal Fiscal Court has stated how beck-aktuell reports. In such a case, there is no taxable lump-sum settlement, the agreement "merely rebalances the rights and obligations of the future spouses by extensively modifying conceivable statutory family law claims in the event of divorce by way of a lump-sum settlement.", according to the BFH.
BAG – Mass layoffs: The Federal Labor Court has referred to the European Court of Justice the question of the purpose of the involvement of the competent authority (in Germany, the employment agency) prescribed by the EU Mass Dismissal Directive. The original labor policy idea behind the regulation was that in the case of mass layoffs, early information should be provided to the Employment Agency in order to prepare labor promotion measures. Of it in practice however nothing more is noticeable, writes attorney Jorn Kuhn on LTO. Rather, the mass dismissal proceedings had become a mere material hurdle for the effective pronouncement of dismissals.
OLG Dresden – militant Antifa/Lina E.: Now also the Sa-taz (Konrad Litschko) over the 28. Day of hearing in the trial against Lina E., who is accused of having formed a left-wing extremist group with others and of having carried out attacks on right-wing extremists. So far none of the victims had been able to recognize the accused, also Maximilian A, who was questioned last week. could not describe his attackers more precisely.
OVG Saxony – soccer spectators:inside and Corona: The Bundesliga soccer team RB Leipzig has filed an urgent application against the Saxon Corona Ordinance at the Higher Administrative Court in Bautzen, because the ordinance has a maximum of 1.000 spectators:inside allowed at Bundesliga matches. Other Bundesligisten, which are similarly restricted by the respective regulations, consider likewise legal steps, reports the Mo-World.
LG Dresden – Theft from the "Green Vault": Sa-FAZ (Stefan Locke), Sa-SZ (Verena Mayer/Antonie Rietzschel) and spiegel.de (Wiebke Ramm) report on the first day of the trial in the case of the burglary in the Dresden "Green Vault". Of a "meticulous preparation the public prosecutor’s office spoke at the arraignment. There was a surprise because the Free State of Saxony, as the sponsor of the damaged State Art Collections, decided at short notice to act as joint plaintiff. So far, 50 more days of hearings are scheduled until October.
Cologne Regional Court – abuse by Catholic priest: A priest, who has had to justify himself since November before the Regional Court of Cologne because of the accusation of sexual abuse, was surprisingly taken into custody in the courtroom after an oral hearing. As a reason for detention, the competent chamber has, as mirror.de and LTO write, a repetition danger affirmatively. The clergyman is accused of having sexually abused his three nieces, who were between seven and 13 years old at the time, in some cases severely, from 1993 to the end of 1999.
Bonn Regional Court – Bundeswehr Advisor Affair: The Ministry of Defense is seeking more than 600 in a civil lawsuit from a consulting firm.000 Euro consultant fee back. It goes, as the Spiegel (Sven Becker/Matthias Gebauer) The court reported in detail on the legal handling of the so-called consultant affair. According to the defense procurement office, which handled the hiring of the consulting firm at the time, billings were allegedly incorrect. The events are politically explosive because there is suspicion that personal relationships between the then head of the ministry, in particular State Secretary Katrin Suder, and the contractors also played a role.
AG Munich to photographer costs with Corona refusal: The Munich District Court has ruled that a bride and groom can claim back the money already paid for a photographer if they had to cancel the wedding because of Corona. The promised service, the making of the photos, had become impossible because it was an absolute fixed deal, the court said according to LTO.
Rooms for Thuringian Justice: Like LTO Writes, Thuringia’s Ministry of Justice currently has no plans to rent additional space for court proceedings. Although two major trials recently had to be postponed because there was a lack of sufficiently large rooms to be able to negotiate under pandemic conditions, "reserve rentals are not planned as a matter of principle because they would involve a very high financial outlay", is said from the Ministry of Justice.
Right in the world
USA – Breyer succession: Now also LTO reports that US President Biden (as successor for retiring Justice Stephen Breyer) wants to appoint for the first time a black woman as Supreme Court Justice. The announcement should also be understood in light of the fact that the U.S. president owes a great deal to African-American voters as a whole and to African-American women in particular, writes the Sa-taz (Dorothea Hahn).
Christian Zaschke (Sa-SZ) comments that Breyer will resign from his position on the U.S. Supreme Court before the fall Senate elections, in which Democrats are expected to lose their majority in the Senate, thus allowing President Biden to still make a new appointment. This is Breyer’s capitulation to reality, because Breyer is acknowledging what he has always publicly denied: That the highest court of the United States is shaped by ideology and is an instrument of party politics.
Turkey – Minister of Justice: The Mo-FAZ (Rainer Hermann) reports that the Turkish justice minister Abdulhamit Gul has resigned. Gul had repeatedly criticized other ministers’ interference in judicial affairs in the past, as well as the lack of implementation of Erdogan’s announced human rights plan, the article says. Bekir Bozdag, who had already served as attorney general from 2013 to 2017, was named to replace him.
International Criminal Justice: The principle of world law and the work of the International Criminal Court have made it more difficult for despots and war criminals to make a "safe exit" for themselves after losing power to negotiate, writes the Mo-SZ (Frank Nienhuysen/Arne Perras u.a.). because there are only a few places left where they can feel safe. This, however, leads – as an unintended consequence – to them clinging even more fiercely to their power.
Legal training
Goals of Referendar:innen: The federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia wants to launch a study on the career aspirations of legal trainees. From spring 2022, 2.000 law clerks will be interviewed about their career plans – at the beginning and end of their legal clerkship, respectively. LTO career (Pauline Dietrich) reports on the project.
Other
Telegram: The rule of law must also be enforced against companies like Telegram, demands Reinhard Muller (Sa-FAZ). The fact that Telegram also brings opposition voices to the fore in unfree parts of the world is no reason to leave the service open to death threats in this country, he said. The rule of law is not toothless, writes law professor Arnd Diringer in his column in WamS. The path that the Federal Criminal Police Office now seems to be taking, namely embedded in a real police strategy to identify suspects through classic criminal investigations, is more costly than threatening the messenger service with ill-considered consequences, but it is promising, according to Diringer.
Video recordings of police operations: tagesschau.en (Markus Sehl/Claudia Kornmeier) explain the legal framework for video recording of police operations. It’s an unsafe situation – both for those filming and for police officers, the authors say. Because legally it is anything but clear when recordings of the operations and a publication of these recordings are allowed and when the emergency forces are allowed to confiscate smartphones. Court rulings on Section 201 of the Criminal Code (violation of the confidentiality of the word) and the Art Copyright Act (dissemination of recordings without the consent of the person depicted) are inconsistent, he said.
Legal history – parliamentary immunity: Martin Rath sheds light on LTO The decades-long discussion about the criminal immunity of members of parliament.
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