Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Police law partly unconstitutional | tagesschau.de

Status: 02/01/2023 10:26 a.m

The new police law in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has been in force since 2020. The Federal Constitutional Court has now ruled that it is partially unconstitutional. Several provisions on surveillance measures are not proportionate.

The expanded investigative powers of the police in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are partly unconstitutional. That was the verdict of the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. The provisions on covert surveillance measures did not fully meet the proportionality requirements.

There are complaints, among other things, about the use of informants and undercover investigators to avert dangers. The regulations on home surveillance and online searches are wholly or partially incompatible with the Basic Law.

Improvements until the end of 2023

The Karlsruhe judges are leaving a large part of the regulations in force for the time being, because it is not the powers themselves that are unconstitutional, but only the constitutional structure. It needs to be improved by the end of the year.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s reformed security and regulatory law came into force in April 2020. The legal reform was controversial from the start, data protectionists feared violations of fundamental rights.

The constitutional complaint was coordinated by the Society for Freedom Rights (GFF), which has criticized the tightening of police laws in almost all federal states and has already initiated several proceedings in Karlsruhe. Five people, including a lawyer, a journalist, a climate activist and two football fans, had contacted the Federal Constitutional Court with the support of the GFF.

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