Corona vaccination obligation: seven questions

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Most experts agree: immunity in the German population is too low to find a way out of the pandemic.

That is why the debate about a possible general obligation to vaccinate has flared up.

She was excluded for a long time.

The government is now trying to introduce a corresponding law.

However, an introduction could take months.

The protests on the streets against mandatory vaccination are getting bigger.

Overall, however, agreement continues to prevail.

Almost two thirds of the German population are in favor of compulsory vaccination.

Many questions are still open, especially legal ones.

We collected some of them from users on Instagram and presented them to the constitutional lawyer Steffen Augsburg.

How is compulsory vaccination compatible with our Basic Law?

Steffen Augsberg, constitutional lawyer and member of the German Ethics Council:

»In the starting point, it is of course the case that an obligation to vaccinate is a contradiction to the right to bodily self-determination, to bodily integrity and to decide what happens to our bodies.

And at the same time it is a fundamental right that does not apply without restriction, that is, something that can actually be defined.

No absolute protection is granted here.

And then you are in a normal weighing situation and have to consider whether the individual problems or feared disadvantages associated with compulsory vaccination are outweighed by the assumed advantages.«

From what age could vaccination be compulsory?

Steffen Augsberg, constitutional lawyer and member of the German Ethics Council:

“First of all, I would take a very critical view if we included minors, including children. They are, as we call it, incapable of giving consent and I believe that we have to solve this problem among adults and should leave the children out of it as far as possible. And with the adults themselves, the question then needs to be clarified as to what purpose we are actually pursuing with mandatory vaccination. In my view, that is reasonably the protection of the healthcare system from overload. And so we then look at the groups of people who are particularly at risk and indirectly endanger the system. And these are risk groups and, above all, older people. And that would be a factual reason to make a corresponding unequal treatment, differentiation. And then you have to thinkwhether a reasonable boundary line can be drawn accordingly. This is always arbitrary up to a point. So there is no mathematically precise procedure - we start exactly at 54 2/3, but that is something that would have to be determined politically if necessary. But that would have the great advantage that existing factual differences, i.e. in terms of self-endangerment, but also the load on the system would be included in the calculation and not just somehow choose a lawn mower method and say that everyone is somehow involved, even if actually no significant dangers emanate from them.«but that is something that would have to be determined politically if necessary. But that would have the great advantage that existing factual differences, i.e. in terms of self-endangerment, but also the load on the system is included in the calculation and not just somehow choose a lawn mower method and say that everyone is somehow involved, even if actually no significant dangers emanate from them.«but that is something that would have to be determined politically if necessary. But that would have the great advantage that existing factual differences, i.e. in terms of self-endangerment, but also the load on the system is included in the calculation and not just somehow choose a lawn mower method and say that everyone is somehow involved, even if actually no significant dangers emanate from them.«

How many vaccinations do you need?

Steffen Augsberg, constitutional lawyer and member of the German Ethics Council:

“It's difficult to capture it in this form. With the existing institution-related vaccination obligation, we see a constitutionally problematic staggered regulatory technique, that the law refers to the ordinance, that the ordinance then in turn refers to statements by the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut. And only there is it determined how many vaccinations are actually required. This is problematic because the legislature, the parliament, has missed out on a significant control effect or has delegated it. Something similar would of course have to be taken into account for a more general obligation to vaccinate. And it is obviously scientifically unclear at the moment how many vaccinations we actually need. As of today, there would probably be at least threebut we can't say much more than that.«

Would vaccination be mandatory forever?

Steffen Augsberg, constitutional lawyer and member of the German Ethics Council:

»We simply don't know yet.

This also has to do with how long Covid-19 will remain with us in possible future variants and how we deal with it.«

Would the unvaccinated have to make an appointment themselves?

Steffen Augsberg, constitutional lawyer and member of the German Ethics Council:

»Reasonably no.

I think it's really very important that when you do something like this, you have to ensure that the vaccination is made as easy as possible for the unvaccinated.

So that would be a bit strange if we had the situation that, for example, an 80-year-old lived alone in his apartment and he was offered a vaccination appointment at a vaccination center 30 kilometers away, but didn't know how to get there.

Then it says: You do not fulfill your legal obligation in this respect.

We must also combine this with appropriate outreach, simple vaccination offers.

Of course, that only increases the overall effort.«

What punishment would there be for refusers?

Steffen Augsberg, constitutional lawyer and member of the German Ethics Council:

“There are different proposals for that. For example, fines should be levied. Or maybe just a random check is enough, it is sometimes said. You would have to think this through, you would have to think about what actually happens when fines are levied, then of course they also have to be collected if necessary. What do I do with people who either can easily afford it or cannot afford it at the moment? Is there the institution of so-called coercive detention to get people to pay for it? But if there are too many people, unvaccinated, who take advantage of it, that is a very serious problem. The second problem is that we are talking about a large group of people.And if only a comparatively small percentage of them decide that they want to attack it, i.e. defend themselves against it in administrative proceedings and legal protection proceedings before the courts, then that should mean a very massive burden on our administration and also on our courts.«

Does the state have to be liable for any side effects or consequential damage?

Steffen Augsberg, constitutional lawyer and member of the German Ethics Council:

»There are actually liability claims against the state that are laid down in the Infection Protection Act, the Medicines Act, and in ordinances.

There is of course also the question of whether there are civil liability claims against the manufacturer.

You have to look a little to see whether they were actually able to pass it on to the state organs.

But in principle it does exist at the moment, but it is a fairly complex structure and it would be worth considering whether you could unravel it a bit, simplify it a bit, in order to clarify the trust in the vaccines in this way."

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