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A sign in the German Bundestag indicates the current mask requirement
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
The corona measures are currently determined by ordinances of the federal and state governments - largely bypassing parliaments.
The SPD parliamentary group is now striving to change the law in order to involve the parliament more closely in the corona decisions.
"We want to ensure that the Bundestag has the last word on the most important decisions," said the legal policy spokesman Johannes Fechner of the "Welt".
The SPD parliamentary group is currently discussing this intensively with the coalition partner and wants to "come to changes in the law as soon as possible".
Specifically, they want to "anchor standard measures such as mask requirement or curfew in the Infection Protection Act so that there is a national legal framework for the federal states," said Fechner.
In addition, "it should be clearly defined which conditions must exist so that the standard measures can be taken at all".
In general, they want "a parliamentary reservation on all decisions that significantly impair fundamental rights".
"Avoiding the impression that fighting pandemics is a matter for the executive"
Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble had submitted proposals to the parliamentary groups for greater parliamentary participation.
The public debate shows "that the Bundestag must make its role as legislator and public forum clear in order to avoid the impression that fighting pandemics is exclusively a matter for the executive and judiciary", it said in a letter to the parliamentary group chairmen.
Before that, there had been more and more criticism that the federal and state governments were passing decisions by the parliaments.
On Wednesday evening, the Bavarian state parliament unanimously called for a clear strengthening of the Bundestag's future anti-corona policy, also with the votes of the government factions CSU and Free Voters.
The aim is nationwide uniform measures to combat corona, the framework of which is defined and decided by the Bundestag.
For this purpose, concrete power standards for interventions that are particularly relevant to fundamental rights, such as exit restrictions, should be anchored in the Federal Infection Protection Act.
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mrc / dpa
