The Federal Constitutional Court clarified the rights of prisoners in a decision published on Wednesday.
The judges judged the constitutional complaint of a man who had resisted several drug controls, which he found degrading, to be “obviously well-founded”.
Marlene Grunert
Editor in Politics.
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The plaintiff is serving a several-year prison sentence in the Werl prison for severe extortion.
In order to prevent drug use, urine samples are regularly taken from the inmates there.
To prevent manipulation, this is done under supervision.
The complainant also had to submit several samples under the gaze of prison officers.
Urine check without concrete suspicion
He then applied to the court for the illegality of the controls to be established;
the JVA should also use blood samples in the future.
The supervised urine samples would have violated his sense of shame considerably and massively invaded his privacy.
After the man unsuccessfully appealed to the regional and higher regional court, he went before the constitutional court.
Its judges have now made it clear that state measures associated with undressing mean “a serious encroachment on general personality rights”.
It is true that interventions that affect the intimate area and the sense of shame of the detainees cannot always be avoided in detention.
"But they are of particular importance," says the decision.
In this respect, prisoners are entitled to special consideration.
The previous decisions would not meet these standards.
It is doubtful whether the urine test could also be ordered without concrete suspicion.