display

The Hamburg Administrative Court has issued an initial judgment on the legality of the exit restrictions decided by the Hamburg Senate - and thus confirmed the line of the state government.

In the current case, an urgent application from a family with a child was dealt with; further applications - including from Hamburg's star lawyer Gerhard Strate - are still pending.

In its judgment, the administrative court sees the proportionality safeguarded by the order of the senate.

Since Good Friday between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m., people in Hamburg have only been allowed to leave the house or apartment for “valid reasons”, including walking the dog, doing sport or taking a job.

“Due to the escalation of the infection rate, which is already at a very high level, an effective containment of the spread of COVID-19 without the order of a nightly exit restriction would be considerably jeopardized - even if all protective measures taken so far are taken into account.

The nocturnal exit restrictions also meet the principle of proportionality. "

In particular, the measure is suitable to achieve the goal set by the Infection Protection Act of protecting the life and health of the population and the functionality of the health system.

The experience gained since spring 2020 in Germany, but also in other European countries and around the world, has shown that comprehensive measures to restrict social contacts in particular contribute to the containment of the pandemic, so that these exit restrictions aimed at further reducing social contacts at night also help should be regarded as suitable.

The ordered exit restrictions are also reasonable for the applicants, even if the importance of the measure for protection against infection could not be assessed with absolute certainty at the time of this decision.

Overall, in terms of its specific effects for the applicants, it is not such a serious intervention that would be disproportionate to the advantages for the general public, given the occurrence of the infection and the need for further measures to contain it.

"Massive encroachment on fundamental rights"

display

The defense attorney Strate had formulated his objections in his application as follows: “We are still talking about an illness which in most cases is accompanied by weak or flu-like symptoms, which - also with regard to the British variant - has to be countered with increased vaccinations , but not through curfews that last occurred in Hamburg during wartime and immediately after the war.

In the case of such massive encroachments on fundamental rights, it should also be borne in mind that the number of deaths attributable to a corona infection is currently falling significantly. "

The available figures would not reveal “that the announced curfew would be a proportionate measure that conforms to fundamental rights.

The requirement not to enter the public space between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. the next morning in the event of a violation is a direct encroachment on the fundamental right to freedom of the person (Article 2, Paragraph 2, Sentence 2, Basic Law).

The applicant does not have to put up with this draconian measure. "