Frank Ulrich Montgomery: "That was a targeted provocation"

Mr. Montgomery, you were President of the German Medical Association and today you are head of the World Medical Association.

The Chamber recently made serious allegations.

Is the relationship broken?

Kim Bjorn Becker

Editor in politics.

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I still consider my relationship with the German Medical Association to be good.

There are almost two dozen people on the board and it is clear that there are discussions and animosities.

So far, however, I have not been able to talk to anyone there about the current dispute because no one has contacted me.

I learned about the criticism from the press.

I found that astonishingly unfriendly and I will bring it up at the next board meeting.

As honorary president, I still take part in the meetings.

I am sure after that we will part peacefully.

In an interview you criticized the fact that courts are taking back existing corona measures in an urgent procedure and called judges in this context "little judges".

That was a deliberate provocation. I believe that seasoned and confident judges can handle it. They put it away, just as we doctors do when someone criticizes in a pointed manner. Specifically, it was only about the Higher Administrative Court in Lüneburg, which has repeatedly withdrawn Corona restrictions single-handedly, most recently the 2-G rule in retail. And that mostly happened in an urgent procedure, i.e. without the court hearing experts. I find that problematic, because such decisions are ultimately carried out by corona deniers like a monstrance. Other courts mostly decided differently, there was a lot of criticism of the judgments from Lüneburg for weeks, including from jurisprudence, but nothing happened. I thoughtmaybe I'll give the debate a new twist with a little provocation.

This rotation has led the Medical Association to accuse you of demeaning judges and disregarding the separation of powers. Would it have been better to do without the escalation?

No. My statements are of course not harmless. But the discussion shows me that there is a problem in Germany if you want to criticize the jurisprudence. The separation of powers is absolutely essential, there is no question about that, including for me. But judges must examine the proportionality of their decisions and also be sufficiently precise. It can also not be the case that in the case of a nationally all-relevant problem with reference to federalism in the federal states, the laws and ordinances applicable in the federal states are changed by judges. The responsibility for infection protection law was withdrawn from the Senate in Lüneburg shortly before Christmas. There must be no cautious behavior, and judgments are not sacrosanct either. You have to be able to address that as well. And sometimes you need a pressure point to move something.

What other reactions did you get to the belittling?

I have received a lot of emails, they can be roughly divided into three categories: about a third immediately asked for my resignation as chairman of the World Medical Association, another group wrote me analogously, finally someone says it, and another third commented that the criticism was in justified in the matter, but not in tone.

Your colleagues at the Medical Association have asked you to stay out of domestic health debates.

Are you going to do that?

There are hardly any purely German topics.

The local case law is one of those, that's true.

But otherwise almost all questions have at least a European dimension.

I am a German doctor who has 40 years of professional politics under his belt and is now active internationally.

It's not like I have a press office and always actively take everything outside.

I am still often asked for my opinion by your colleagues.

Often enough, I refer to the German Medical Association.

The dispute is also about who speaks for the German doctors.

The Medical Association has emphasized that you are not mandated to do this.

Are you competing for the sovereignty of interpretation?

There is probably a certain jealousy in the chamber, which, among other things, rubs against my narcissism.

I stand by that.

It is clear that I no longer have a mandate from the Medical Association.

I never said that either.

I describe myself as a German doctor who has also been Chairman of the Board of Directors of the World Medical Association for a good three years.

Is the World Medical Association only responsible for international medical ethical questions, as the German Medical Association writes in support of its complaint?

It is the association of medical chambers and medical associations in around 120 countries, Germany is part of the Federal Medical Association.

Our task at the World Medical Association is to carry the voice of the medical profession, among other things, in the deliberations at the World Health Organization in Geneva.

The restriction to exclusively ethical topics is unfortunately a mistake.

Which topics are you currently working on?

In the Corona crisis, the global distribution of vaccines is an important topic, we are coordinating closely with the Covax initiative.

Six years ago, when I was still in a different position at the World Medical Association, we met frequently at Zika; the disease had spread in Brazil at the time.

So there are also very specific medical and social issues that concern us.

It is correct that ethical questions were the reason for the foundation of the federal government.

The starting point was the crimes of German doctors during the Nazi era.

Today we also manage and develop several international declarations.