The constitutional court declares the ban on nuclear transport null and void

Created: 01/11/2022Updated: 01/11/2022, 9:42 AM

A representation of the goddess Justitia.

© Carsten Koall / dpa / symbol image

Bremen pushed forward with its own law and banned the transport of nuclear fuel through its ports.

It is probably not that easy, the administrative court found with a view to the constitution.

Now the Federal Constitutional Court has decided on it.

Karlsruhe / Bremen - The Federal Constitutional Court has declared the controversial ban on nuclear transport via Bremen ports to be incompatible with the Basic Law and null and void. The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen lacks the legislative competence to issue such a handling ban, announced the German supreme court in Karlsruhe on Tuesday (Az. 2 BvL 2/15). The federal government alone could do something like this for the peaceful use of nuclear energy. This does not change the fact that the Senate can allow exceptions in general or in individual cases.

In July 2015, after a hearing, the Bremen Administrative Court turned to the Constitutional Court with the question of whether the Bremen regulation violated the Basic Law and the so-called principle of federal loyalty, which prohibits the federal state's legislative competence from being circumvented.

A fuel element manufacturer from Lingen, a nuclear transport company from Hanau and a company for nuclear waste disposal from Essen had applied for special permits to stop loading, unloading and reloading.

According to the court announcement, they all have transport permits from the Federal Office for Radiation Protection under the Atomic Energy Act, "in which the transport route via the ports of Bremen is expressly permitted as a transport route".

The state government rejected exceptions.

The companies went to court.

In November 2010 - before the nuclear disaster in Fukushima and the later decision to phase out nuclear power in Germany - the citizens of Bremen had spoken out in favor of a transport ban on nuclear fuels.

The then red-green Bremen government closed the ports in 2012 through the Port Operation Act for the handling of such material.

This is how pressure should be put on the federal government.

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However, the administrative court had questioned the constitutionality and submitted the Karlsruhe case, the proceedings were meanwhile suspended (Az. 5 K 171/13).

In the decision at that time, however, it already says: If the regulation is "unconstitutional and void, the lawsuit would be successful because the plaintiffs would then have to establish that the handling of nuclear fuels does not require approval under the Port Operations Act".

The Second Senate, chaired by maritime law expert Doris König, referred to Article 73 of the Basic Law in its decision of December 7th, which has now been published.

Accordingly, the federal government has exclusive legislation, among other things, on the generation and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

This also includes regulations on the transport and handling of nuclear fuel, it said.

The handling of nuclear shipments has always been controversial in Germany.

Demonstrations against the transport of Castor are just one example.

In Hamburg, on the other hand, several port companies volunteered to stop handling nuclear fuel in the port of Hamburg.

The SPD and the Greens in the government coalition there had opted for this path - and against a ban.

dpa