Bavarian Corona curfew disproportionate: Holetschek still defends it

Created: 11/23/2022, 4:17 p.m

By: Thomas Eldersch

The Federal Administrative Court has now confirmed what the Bavarian Administrative Court has already found: The Corona curfew was disproportionate.

Munich/Leipzig – The year is 2020. A new, potentially deadly disease is spreading in Germany.

A lockdown is imposed to protect the population from Corona.

In Bavaria they go one step further.

Citizens are no longer allowed to leave the house without a valid reason.

The birth of the Corona curfew.

Two years later, however, it is clear that it was disproportionate in the form at that time.

Federal Administrative Court agrees with Bavarian Administrative Court

It is a sensitive legal defeat for the Bavarian state government of Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU): Bavaria's controversial corona rules from March 2020 were disproportionately strict.

This emerges from a decision by the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig published on Tuesday.

The exit restriction at that time was not compatible with the principle of proportionality, it said.

The judges thus rejected an appeal by the state government against a previous judgment of the Bavarian Administrative Court.

With the judgment, the Federal Administrative Court follows the Bavarian Administrative Court.

The justification for the judgment states precisely that contact restrictions could have been considered as a “milder measure”.

"They would have been less of a burden on the addressees than the challenged exit restriction." The all-day ban on leaving one's own apartment to stay outdoors was "a serious encroachment on fundamental rights".

The state government was therefore unable to explain plausibly why an exit restriction could have done so much more to contain the pandemic than mere contact restrictions.

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Holetschek defends the government's corona measures

Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU), who was not even in office at the time, continued to defend the decisions of that time.

You should have acted quickly back then, the politician said on Tuesday.

“In the spring of 2020 there was limited knowledge of the novel and highly contagious coronavirus, no medicines and no vaccine.

It was clear that in view of the many serious illnesses and high mortality, a consistent approach was necessary - and that's exactly what we did in Bavaria," he explained.

"It was important to make decisions quickly and not to hesitate too long." The protection of people was "the benchmark and goal of our actions".

Holetschek therefore emphasized that the state government was convinced that the exit restrictions "were an effective and correct means for the well-being and safety of the citizens of Bavaria from the point of view at the time".

"That will not change if, in retrospect, courts come to a different assessment." They respect the decision, will carefully analyze the reasons for the judgment and draw the necessary conclusions.

“But one thing is also clear: in fighting the corona pandemic, we often had to enter new legal territory.

The courts will then decide some disputes against us as well.”