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The well-known Hamburg lawyer Gerhard Strate liked to drive through nightly Hamburg in the past few months to clear his head or simply to enjoy the Hanseatic city. This was stopped by the exit restriction in effect since Good Friday in Hamburg, which applies from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. the following day - but that alone was not the reason why Strate first filed an application before the administrative court and then before the higher administrative court. He did not consider the reasons given for the measure by the Hamburg Senate to be sufficient to implement such a profound restriction on fundamental rights. But on Thursday he had to learn that the Hamburg judges see it differently.
In the judgment of the Higher Administrative Court, in which the application was rejected, it says: "The studies named by the applicant are not very informative for the current situation of the pandemic in Hamburg or support the assumptions of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg on the effectiveness of nighttime exit restrictions. The legislator is also not obliged to base its measures solely on the abstract mortality statistics, which can only be interpreted against the background of the measures to contain the corona pandemic. "
Strate had added statistics on the mortality rates for March to his application; the data from the Federal Statistical Office showed no evidence of excess mortality. He also referred to studies by scientists. Literally it said: "The state of knowledge of science is considerably further, although not with regard to the 'exact sources of infection', but the contact areas with the greatest density of infection can be clearly identified on the basis of scientific investigations," says the reason for the complaint. Strate cites a study by Chinese scientists published in the journal “Science” and quotes from it: “In the household, the risk of transmission increases during the phase of a lockdown,probably due to increased contact as a result of physical confinement. "
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"Annoying," as Strate puts it, is the fact that the Senate's argumentation for the exit restrictions is "that the imposition of curfews for private households and the closing of facilities to the public are mentioned in the same breath.
The curfew affects one of the most elementary basic rights of the citizen, namely his freedom of movement - the exercise of which the citizen will have to forego at least one third of the day in the future if the offense is punished.
In terms of the level of interference, this cannot be compared with the lack of access to the State Opera or a football stadium, ”said Strate.
The judgment of the Higher Administrative Court is not contestable.