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https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/08/11/partisanship-colors-views-of-covid-19-handling-across-advanced-economies/, huh I guess I was fooled by my filter bubble. I am a German law student, and most law related discussion unequivocally opposes the corona handling as it is plainly unconstitutional.
That did not come through at all. Politicians, the media, and some, no doubt hand-picked lawyers, would casually brush off the unconstitutional objection, as if it were a meaningless piece of paper, red tape you can jettison whenever you feel like it. I refused to get tested daily when paragraph 28a went into force, sent an email referring to the grundgesetz , got fired. The direct result of government interference in my supposedly guaranteed rights. The lawyers I talked to said there was nothing to be done, it was all fine.
Not only did the lawyers failed to stop egregious violations of the constitution (and lockdowns are imo even worse), they failed to even communicate their opposition( if there was one) in the public square. Do you have some sources for the claim that lawyers unequivocally opposed the corona handling, was there an official pronouncement we all missed?
If you want to you can get digging in the NJW (Neue Juristische Wochenzeitschrift) archives, given that that is the premier magazine that every law related academic reads and wants to be published in irregardless of field. It usually has a strong libertarian slant, although there are a few CDU and Greens aspected articles aswell. Be warned however, the magazine is entirely formulated within technical jargon and is thus near incrompehensible for a layman, and it carries a pricetag of 25€/month at least.
If you want some work alleviated here is an univeristy website which has also an article by a professor who published one of his NJW articles about the constitutionality of the Corona regulations freely accessible in pdf format, it is "Der demokratische Rechtsstaat in der Corona-Pandemie, Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (NJW) 2021, 2766-2771". I scanned that one and it seemed very archetypical for the stance of the NJW towards the constitutionality of the corona regulations, the other articles linked on that website, judging from the headlines, share similar stances.
Also since I just realised that technically does not answer your question of "why can my rights be reduced despite the lawyers saying this is unconstitutional", that is because in Germany lawyers do not actually hold any political power. The power of the lawyers can be summed up as the "Herschende Meinung in der Literatur". The only way the literature opinion has actual effect on the interpretation of the law is when the courts take it over, and make it "Rechtsprechung", thus entering the judicative. As long as the courts disagree with the common lawyers opinion in the literature, that opinion is mostly worthless, all political power is with judicative, executive and legislative in Germany. And the courts were extremely loyal to the state in the corona pandemic, the BVerfG, the constitutional court and technically the highest court in the country routinely sides with the state in these decisions.
You’re lawyering here, by pointing to formal powers. If farmers or postmen were ‘unequivocally opposed’ to a government decision, I would expect to at least hear about it, despite them not having the formal power to overturn anything. Lawyers, as one of the priestly classes of civil society , possess far more power, prestige and verbal ability, yet nothing was heard from them. And the highest courts, their elite, those who actually did something instead of sending a memo in a technical journal, were completely on board with the program.
Let's make a distinction here. Are you arguing that lawyers were not opposed to the corona regulations, or that the lawyers opposed to the decision had a moral duty to make themselves heard more?
Both.
How do you explain the courts siding with the state every time, otherwise? And the silence.
Definitely.
You have a wrong perspective on things. Lawyers are not the same class as judges. Taking your analogy of a priestly class, judges are salaried by the state, lawyers get paid on a contract basis by clients. Judges are knights in service of the crown, lawyers are mercenaries who do whatever they are paid to do. If the peasants wonder why the mercenaries didn't do enough, the answer is usually because they weren't paid enough. Although a considerably amount of Verfassungsbeschwerden came before the court, so even that is a dodgy perspective.
I don’t see why the judicial branch should have any formal power at all if they’re just going to do what the executive says every time, to pay for the mortgage. Their job isn’t to sell an ‘officially legally approved’ stamp to their biggest benefactor. That is simony.
Your defense of lawyers’ integrity consists of asking for more money. Presumably people who care about the constitution should have bribed the bundesverfassungsgericht to get their desired result, since according to you, that's what the state did. The lawyer jokes write themselves.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gewaltenteilung
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