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In the discussion about corona vaccines, Ethics Council member Steffen Augsberg considers that mandatory vaccination for certain professional groups or areas of activity is conceivable. “If you really need it, for example in intensive care units, it depends on voluntary compliance,” the Giessen law professor told the website hessenschau.de on Saturday. For society as a whole, the principle of voluntariness will certainly stand.
The German Ethics Council advocates prioritizing vaccines with the goal of avoiding serious courses and deaths from Covid-19. To this end, high-risk groups such as the elderly and previously ill should be vaccinated as a priority, but also medical and nursing personnel, as well as people in professions to maintain state functions and public life.
Augsberg spoke in favor of addressing the issue in parliaments: “However, with the specific vaccination situation, I think we urgently need a legal basis in the Infection Protection Act that contains the general guidelines. A statutory ordinance of the Federal Ministry of Health or an ordinance that also refers to a recommendation of the Permanent Commission on Vaccination could be issued on this basis. We need a staggered procedure that always includes the participation of the legislature. “
Preferential treatment for individual groups requires law
However, the federal government only wants to regulate vaccination against the coronavirus by ordinance. A procedure that not only Augsberg talks about, but also the Scientific Service of the Bundestag. In a legal opinion available to the German Press Agency, it says: »The prevailing opinion that prioritizing certain population groups for access to vaccines requires a formal law that regulates at least the essential criteria for the distribution of a rare vaccine. “
Finally, the Federal Constitutional Court held that, in particular, the relevance of a measure for fundamental rights was decisive for it to be regulated by a formal law. The possibility of being vaccinated against the cause of the Covid-19 disease is of enormous relevance for the entire population, since everyone is affected equally by the risk of contagion and the consequent restrictions in daily life. The decision on which population groups will be initially preferred in the distribution thus shows “a high level of general relevance to fundamental rights”, according to the draft requested by the FDP MP Stephan Thomae.
The Bundestag should not be “relegated to a mere spectator” again, the parliamentarian warned. In a democracy, the parliament has to decide on the essential questions. “With the vaccine allocation, we literally distribute the chances of life,” Thomae said. Therefore, it is unacceptable that the Government and, above all, the Minister of Justice, Christine Lambrecht (SPD), avoid the debate in the Bundestag.
After the approval of a corona vaccine, population groups in Germany that are at significantly higher risk of serious or fatal courses of the disease should be vaccinated first. Because the number of cans will not immediately be sufficient for the entire population due to production bottlenecks. The German Ethics Council, the Leopoldina National Academy of Sciences and the Standing Commission on Immunization of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) issued recommendations on behalf of the Federal Government in early November on who should be immunized immediately. No precise statements on prioritization have been made yet – that is, not all preferred groups have been precisely identified, he said.
