‘Catastrophically Wrong’: German Court Declares Lockdown Unconstitutional in ‘Politically Explosive’ Decision
Scoop Publisher Francesco Abbruzzino
A German district court has declared a strict lockdown imposed by the government of the central state of Thuringia last spring unconstitutional, as it acquitted a person accused of violating it.
A trivial case about a man violating strict German lockdown rules by celebrating a birthday with his friends has ended up in a decision the German media described as “politically explosive.” A district court in the city of Weimar did not just acquit the defendant but also stated that the authorities themselves breached Germany’s basic law.
Thuringia’s spring lockdown was a “catastrophically wrong political decision with dramatic consequences for almost all areas of people’s lives,” the court said, justifying its decision. It particularly condemned a restriction limiting private gatherings to the members of one household and one person outside of it.
It was this regulation that a local man violated by hosting a party attended by his seven friends. Yet, the judge said that the regional government itself violated the “inviolably guaranteed human dignity” secured by Article 1 of the German basic law in the first place by imposing such restrictions.