For Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach, the urgent decision from Karlsruhe in the current political dispute with Bavaria and other federal states about the implementation of partial vaccination in the healthcare system is good news.
At least from a constitutional point of view, nothing stands in the way of the introduction of compulsory vaccination for employees in clinics, nursing homes or medical practices by March 15th.
Because the judges have rejected the 74 constitutional complaints by around 300 plaintiffs against the facility-related compulsory vaccination, the provisional law passed by the Bundestag and Bundesrat can come into force.
Even if the Federal Constitutional Court has not yet ruled on the main issue, it supports the ethical and medical arguments in its reasoning against the urgent applications of the mostly unvaccinated plaintiffs,
Older people and patients with previous illnesses or disabilities would be exposed to a “significantly greater risk” of becoming infected with the corona virus and becoming seriously ill or dying if the obligation to vaccinate was suspended until the final decision of the court.
On the other hand, the disadvantages for unvaccinated caregivers, nurses or physiotherapists, such as physical damage or even death due to possible vaccination side effects, are significantly less likely.
Moreover, persons affected by the law would not have to be “inevitably” vaccinated.
You could eventually avoid vaccination by changing jobs.
This is also an important note.
With their first decision on the subject of vaccination, the judges have also given a signal with a view to the opponents of vaccination and vaccination who are demonstrating for their individual fundamental rights and freedoms.
In this case, the right of patients and elderly residents who are particularly at risk, as particularly vulnerable groups, to protection against infection, illness and death is to be valued more highly.
The judges said nothing about the understandable criticism from the federal states and municipalities about the practical enforcement and control of the law, for example by the health authorities, who were already overburdened in the pandemic.
In any case, the doubts about the introduction of a general obligation to vaccinate should not diminish after the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in view of the subsequent political debate about a law that the Bundestag and Bundesrat passed with a large majority.
It is not yet foreseeable whether the group applications now presented by deputies of the traffic light coalition will stand up in the event of a Bundestag majority in Karlsruhe.
The complicated draft law of the Union faction with a graduated vaccination requirement according to endangered age groups, which should only come into force in the event of a new corona wave, sounds like a smug farewell to the demand for general vaccination.