According to a decision from Karlsruhe: Government wants to regulate triage quickly

The Karlsruhe judges couldn’t put it more clearly: An “immediate” triage regulation is needed to protect people with disabilities. The decision was welcomed across all parties, the federal government promises a quick remedy.

Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann has announced that the Federal Government will react quickly to the Federal Constitutional Court’s triage decision: “The first goal must be that there is no triage in the first place. But if it does, then clear rules are required to protect people with handicaps Offer discrimination, “wrote the FDP politician on Twitter.

Clear decision – but room for maneuver

According to the Federal Constitutional Court, people with certain previous illnesses and impairments are particularly at risk in the corona pandemic. If there are not enough beds and ventilators in the intensive care units, there is a risk that they will not be treated. That is why the legislature must enact better regulations to protect people with disabilities.

According to the judges, it is unconstitutional that politicians have not done this so far. You refer, among other things, to Article 3 Paragraph 3 Clause 2 of the Basic Law. According to this, people with disabilities must not be disadvantaged. The Federal Constitutional Court does not make any specific requirements on the question of what a regulation could look like. The legislature has a wide scope for assessment, evaluation and design here.

“I welcome these clear words”

“The Federal Constitutional Court shows that there is a risk of people with a disability being disadvantaged in an extreme situation such as triage,” said Buschmann in a more detailed statement. The legislature must therefore immediately set requirements itself.

“I welcome these clear words from the Federal Constitutional Court.” The federal government will “quickly and carefully analyze the various legislative options and quickly submit a draft law to the German Bundestag,” announced Buschmann.

Cross-party consent

The decision of the Karlsruhe judges was welcomed across all parties. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach tweeted: “People with disabilities need protection from the state more than anyone else.”

Numerous other SPD politicians also joined the praise. In addition to numerous representatives of the FDP, approval also came from the ranks of the Greens.

Union is urging rapid legal certainty

Politicians of the Union called on the Federal Government to react swiftly to the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court. Among other things, the deputy chairman of the Union parliamentary group, Andrea Lindholz, demanded quick legal security for doctors, also with a view to the threat of overloading the hospitals with the Omikron variant of the corona virus. “The questions raised by the Federal Constitutional Court in its decision could therefore soon become acute. For this reason, from my point of view, a corresponding law should be discussed and passed by the Bundestag in January,” said the CSU politician.

FDP Vice President and Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki countered in the “Rheinische Post” with a reproach to the previous government: “The fact that the Union that appointed the Federal Health Minister in the last legislative period did not act here for a year and a half unfortunately only fits into the picture Corona policy designed for the short term under Chancellor Merkel. “

Above all, the legislature should work to avoid triage situations, said AfD parliamentary group vice-president Beatrix von Storch: “We are a developed country in the first world that does not come to the brink of the collapse of the economy and society with 5000 additional intensive care patients If so, then that alone is a massive political and management problem. ”

“Involve people with disabilities”

The Federal Government’s Commissioner for the Disabled, Jürgen Dusel, told the “RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland” that people with disabilities and their self-advocacy organizations should be involved in the legislative process as experts on their own behalf.

Numerous associations also praised the decision as overdue, including the board of directors of the German Foundation for Patient Protection, Eugen Brysch: “Now the Bundestag can no longer avoid it,” said Brysch. So far, the Bundestag has always delegated decisions on prioritization in the health system – for example to professional associations. The decisions now to be made are certainly not easy for the MPs.

Legislators “must define guard rails”

In addition to the churches, there was praise for the decision from the chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery. Similar to the transplant law, the legislator must now define “guard rails”, according to which medical organizations should orient themselves with their guidelines for action, Montgomery told the newspapers of the “Funke Mediengruppe”. “But the responsibility for the final decision will always remain with the doctors.”

The latter was also emphasized by Uwe Janssens, President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI). In the end it could not be “that the laws prescribe medical criteria,” Janssens said in the daily topics. That would then have to “ultimately be reserved for doctors”. Such cases are so complex “that they cannot depict in any law in the world what is going on at the bedside,” says the intensive care doctor.

He also defended the current medical recommendations on triage. The current decision of the Federal Constitutional Court on triage was “exactly what we have already written in our recommendations”. The DIVI always pointed out “that when making prioritization decisions at the bedside, disability or age shouldn’t play a role,” said Janssens. Therefore, the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court “strengthens our recommendations, which we developed further for the third time in December”.

File number: 1 BvR 1541/20