Osnabruck. The Federal Constitutional Court is once again to address the facility-related vaccination requirement during the corona pandemic. The Osnabrück Administrative Court is now submitting a nursing assistant case to the Karlsruhe judges for review. In a previous case, the Federal Constitutional Court confirmed the facility-related vaccination requirement as legal in April 2022.
The background to the new Osnabrück decision is the protocols of the COVID-19 crisis team of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), which have already been published. Its chairman, Lars Schaade, was heard as a witness before the administrative court. According to this, “the independence of the official decision-making must be questioned”. This assessment could also be of great importance for other proceedings, because the courts have referred to the RKI in almost all corona decisions.
“Grown in unconstitutionality”
On the issue of compulsory vaccination in connection with facilities, the Osnabrück Administrative Court referred to its aim of protecting vulnerable people from infection by unvaccinated staff. However, just a few months after the regulation came into force in mid-March 2022, it was found that vaccination does not offer protection against transmission, but above all prevents serious cases.
However, the RKI apparently did not inform the Ministry of Health about this. In this regard, the facility-related vaccination requirement “became unconstitutional in the course of 2022”. The Federal Constitutional Court will now rule on this again.
The plaintiff nursing assistant worked in a hospital in the Osnabrück district. Since she was not vaccinated and could not provide proof of recovery or a certificate of vaccine intolerance, the district prohibited her from continuing to work from home. (mwo)
Administrative Court of Osnabrück, Ref.: 3A 224/22