Compulsory vaccination: Comprehensive criticism from constitutional lawyers
The review period for the planned legislative proposal expired on Monday. Nationwide, citizens and institutions have submitted more than 100,000 statements, most of them with critical or negative comments.
Lots of questions about the minimum age
The two Salzburg constitutional lawyers, Reinhard Klaushofer and Benjamin Kneihs, are also working intensively on the federal government’s draft law. They criticize, among other things, that the duty should apply to the age of 14, as the expert Klaushofer describes: “If the vaccination rate leads to that or may. This also includes 14 to 18 year olds, and for the gold-plated special protection. “
In addition, the draft law does not regulate how to deal with dementia or disabled people who are unable to make decisions themselves. In the current version, penalties against these groups of people are not excluded if they do not get vaccinated.
“Cross vaccinations not legally permitted”
So-called “off-label applications” would not be exempted from the compulsory vaccination, so the experts. This also applies, for example, to booster vaccinations for children or cross-vaccinations, as constitutional lawyer Kneihs explains: “If I have had two vaccinations with Astra-Zeneca and that is no longer offered. And I have to prove a third vaccination, then I am forced to have an off-label vaccination. We don’t judge whether it’s good or bad. However, it is not approved under pharmaceutical law. Therefore, from our point of view, you cannot force people. “
National Council disempowered? Minister bald too powerful?
A leveraging of the legislative parliament they provided for in the law “power to issue ordinances” for the health minister: “From our point of view, this point is constitutionally untenable.”
In addition, the constitutional lawyers see some of the current issues.
The obligation to vaccinate could no longer correspond to the constitution, so Kneihs: “If the obligation to vaccinate is no longer suitable to create the necessary protection, then the obligation to vaccinate would be unconstitutional. If it is no longer necessary because the virus is becoming so harmless, then it would also be unconstitutional. And if the benefit is out of proportion to the severity of the intervention, then the duty would also be unconstitutional. “
“Economic well-being not taken into account”
Constitutional lawyer Klaushofer adds that the situation becomes more and more problematic the less effective a vaccination is: “The less it is avoided what one actually wants to avoid through the vaccination – namely the overloading of the health system.”
“That also has to do with a complex assessment of whether to impose an internal lockdown, compulsory vaccination or other measures.”
Should the health system continue to be pushed to its limits by Omikron and subsequent variants – and should lockdowns continue to be necessary, then an obligation to vaccinate would be constitutionally tenable, so experts die.
The state must not impose old vaccines
But if there are soon better vaccines, it will be difficult for the legislature, says Kneihs: “The state must then ensure that the adapted vaccines are available in the required quantities. And that dying will also be vaccinated. He can then certainly not force you to continue using the vaccines that have not been adapted. “
From the point of view of constitutional lawyers, the legislature still has a lot to consider before the National Council decides on mandatory vaccination.