Human rights in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
enjoy a high level of protection, both in theory and in practice, and are enshrined in the ''
Grundgesetz''. The country has ratified most international human rights treaties. Reports from independent organizations such as
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
certify a high level of compliance with human rights, while still pointing out several issues, in particular
police brutality
Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...
and mistreatment of
refugees
A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution. . The 2008
Freedom in the World report by US-funded
Freedom House
Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...
gives Germany a score of "1" (the best possible) for both
political rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
and
civil liberties
Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties may ...
.
Law
The constitution of Germany, the ''
Grundgesetz'', which came into effect on May 23, 1949, puts a particular emphasis on human rights. Its first sentence, "
Human dignity is inviolable", is being interpreted as protecting the sum of human rights. This paragraph is protected by an "
eternity clause
Eternity, in common parlance, means infinite time that never ends or the quality, condition, or fact of being everlasting or eternal. Classical philosophy, however, defines eternity as what is timeless or exists outside time, whereas sempitern ...
" and cannot be changed. It has wide-ranging effects on judicial practice; for example, it has been used to justify the right on
Informational self-determination The term informational self-determination was first used in the context of a German constitutional ruling relating to personal information collected during the 1983 census. The German term is informationelle Selbstbestimmung. It is formally defined ...
in a 1983 finding of the
Federal Constitutional Court of Germany.
However, following experiences from the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
, Germany sees itself as a ''
wehrhafte Demokratie'' (fortified democracy); actions targeted towards removing the democratic order are not covered by human rights.
The constitution guarantees all rights from the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal De ...
(which itself is not legally binding), with the exception of an unlimited
right for asylum
The right of asylum (sometimes called right of political asylum; ) is an ancient juridical concept, under which people persecuted by their own rulers might be protected by another sovereign authority, like a second country or another ent ...
.
The ratification of the
European Convention on Human Rights
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by t ...
allows citizens to appeal to the
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...
.
Mandatory
military service for male citizens was established in 1956. At any time,
conscientious objector
A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...
s can opt to do ''
Zivildienst
Zivildienst is the German denomination for the alternative civilian service for conscripted persons who are conscientious objectors to fulfill their national service, typically in the fields of social work (e.g. hospitals, retirement homes, emer ...
'' (civilian service) instead. For the time of both services, many human rights such as
freedom of movement
Freedom of movement, mobility rights, or the right to travel is a human rights concept encompassing the right of individuals to travel from place to place within the territory of a country,Jérémiee Gilbert, ''Nomadic Peoples and Human Rights' ...
are suspended. Since 1 July 2011, the government no longer has the ability to exercise the right under this article, that is, military service is currently ''de facto'' voluntary in Germany. However, there are no plans to abolish laws allowing conscription.
Treaties
Germany is also a member of the
United Nations Human Rights Council. It recognizes the jurisdiction of the
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals ...
.
Reports
The
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
reports of 2005 and 2006 mainly criticize—though very rarely occurring and mostly severely punished—some cases of
police brutality
Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...
, mistreatment of
refugees
A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution. , and
racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
attacks.
The 2008
Freedom in the World report by US-funded
Freedom House
Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...
gives Germany a score of "1" (the best possible) for both
political rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
and
civil liberties
Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties may ...
.
Topics
Custody
Remand must be ordered by a
judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...
. Usually, a suspect cannot be detained for more than six months without a conviction.
The
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
is abolished. A court may order that a person be detained indefinitely even after the sentence is completed, if the person is convicted of particularly serious crimes and is judged, after expert testimony, to be a danger to the public (''Sicherungsverwahrung'').
The German citizen
Khalid El-Masri was abducted by the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
in 2005 and interned without trial for months, although innocent. German
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...
was informed early about this, but undertook nothing, which was subject to an intense political debate.
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is guaranteed by the constitution. However, ''
Volksverhetzung'' (incitement of the people) is a crime, defined as spreading hate against or insult against a part of the population. In 1994, a paragraph explicitly forbidding denial of
Nazi crimes was added.
Freedom of assembly
Open-air public rallies require (generally) prior announcement to the local authorities, but no permits. Local authorities can prohibit rallies only on grounds of public safety concerns or involvement of outlawed organizations.
Freedom of press
Freedom of press is generally very established in Germany; the 2009
Press Freedom Index of
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...
rates Germany at place 18 of 175 countries.
The most notable incident involving free press restrictions was the
Spiegel scandal
The ''Spiegel'' affair of 1962 (german: link=no, Spiegel-Affäre) was a political scandal in West Germany. It stemmed from the publication of an article in '' Der Spiegel,'' West Germany's weekly political magazine, about the nation's defense ...
of 1962, when the Minister of Defense
Franz Josef Strauß ordered the unlawful arrest of several journalists after an article accusing him of bribery. The scandal led to the dismissial of Strauß from office and severely damaged the reputation of Chancellor
Konrad Adenauer.
In 2005, minister of the interior
Otto Schily authorized a raid of offices of the periodical Cicero, which was criticized as an attack on press freedom by part of the German press. The raid was based on a substantiated suspicion of leaking of state secrets. However, on February 27, 2007, the
Federal Constitutional Court ruled that suspicion that a journalist is aiding the betrayal of state secrets is not sufficient to warrant a search, and thus the raid was illegal. The finding has been widely regarded as a strengthening of press freedom.
A scandal regarding spying on journalists by the secret service ''
Bundesnachrichtendienst
The Federal Intelligence Service (German: ; , BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office. The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin and is the world's largest intelligence head ...
'', starting in May 2006, has not been cleared up yet.
Police brutality
Today the
law enforcement in Germany is one of the most regulated and controlled in the world. Especially because of experiences through the Nazi-regime, the German politics and people are very attentive to the power and way of working of the police. In Germany the use of firearms—even by the police—
is strictly regulated and there are (compared with other countries) only a few cases of shots fired by the police every year. However, there were some incidents in the last past years:
On 5 March 2009 a man died in a hospital after falling into a coma while in police custody in Hagen on 17 February where he had been bound face-down. The Office of the Public Prosecutor terminated its investigations and found that the force used by the police was proportionate, despite the fact that since 2000, police officers have been trained not to restrain a person face-down because of the danger of asphyxia.
In December 2008, the regional court of Dessau acquitted two police officers of killing
Oury Jalloh
Oury Jalloh (1969 in Conakry, Guinea – 7 January 2005, in Dessau, Germany) was an asylum seeker who died in a fire in a police cell in Dessau, Germany. The hands and feet of Jalloh, who was alone in the cell, were tied to a mattress. A fire a ...
as a result of negligence. Oury Jalloh had died 2005 when a fire broke out in his cell, where he was restrained to the bed. In its oral reasons for the judgment, the court stated lack of evidence as the reason for the acquittal, and strongly criticized the testimonies of most of the police officers who were witnesses in the court case. On 13 December 2012, the regional court of Magdeburg overruled the earlier acquittal, and ruled for negligent homicide. An earlier accusation of bodily harm with fatal consequences was dropped by the public prosecution for lack of evidence. The accused officer was condemned to a fine of 10,800 Euro by the court, in excess of the 6,300 Euro plead for by prosecution.
Torture
There are no reports on systematic use of torture in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. However, there were some related incidents.
In 2002,
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
's police vice president
Wolfgang Daschner ordered a subordinate officer to threaten the suspect of a kidnapping to use force in order to get information on the whereabouts of the abductee (the abductee was killed shortly after the kidnapping, but the suspect told the police that the child was still alive, and Daschner decided to break the law to save the child's life. Daschner himself wrote down an official note of his actions). This triggered an emotional debate over the legality of such measures. Daschner was convicted to the lowest possible penalty of a fine. Daschner and the subordinate officer remained in duty.
In a trial against terror suspect
Mounir El Motassadeq
Mounir el-Motassadeq (Arabic: منير المتصدق; born April 3, 1974) was convicted by a German court of being a member of al-Qaeda and of assisting some of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks. He was initially convicted of involvement ...
, a court used evidence provided by US authorities, despite widespread evidence of torture in
US detainment camps. The conviction was rejected in appeal due to lack of evidence. In January 2007 he was condemned for 15 years in detention.
Forced psychiatric interventions have repeatedly been reported by Psychiatric Survivor activists to be inhumane, meeting the criteria of and being experienced as torture. In 2011 and 2012, the German Federal Constitutional Court and the Federal Court of Justice clarified that there has never been any sufficient legal basis for compulsory treatment as practiced until then. Under the protests of human rights activists who were supported by sociologist Prof. Wolf-Dieter Narr, the German Government and successively also the federal state governments started working towards a quick legalization of involuntary treatment. By the time the first of these laws were enacted, the Special Rapporteur on torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Juan E. Méndez, reported on abusive practises in health care settings worldwide and the policies that promote these practises. He stated that:
''"both this mandate and United Nations treaty bodies have established that involuntary treatment and other psychiatric interventions in health-care facilities are forms of torture and ill-treatment"'' and that ''"it is essential that an absolute ban on all coercive and non-consensual measures, including restraint and solitary confinement of people with psychological or intellectual disabilities, should apply"''
Surveillance
Several parties, such as the right-wing "
National Democratic Party of Germany" (NPD) and the communist platform of the
Left Party, are under surveillance from the ''
Verfassungsschutz'' ("Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution"). The use of
police informers has sometimes been criticized as excessive. A motion to label the NPD as an illegal organization was abandoned, because it became apparent that many actions of the NPD were actually controlled by the Verfassungsschutz. In addition to parties, the German Government placed the
Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a scientology as a business, bu ...
and its members in Germany under surveillance by the Verfassungsschutz since 1997 for the alleged goal of abolishing the order based on the German Grundgesetz. See also:
Scientology in Germany
The Church of Scientology has operated in Germany since 1970. German authorities estimate that there are 4,000 active Scientologists in Germany ; Bundesministerium des Innern, für Bau und Heimat (2021) the "Church" of Scientology gives a members ...
.
Vulnerable populations
Minority and foreign parents
Ethnic minorities are underrepresented in the political process and in public life, especially the civil service. There were some cases of attacks on minorities in the country by right-wing groups, although Germany is—especially because of its past—very considerate on tolerance and integration. In 2010 the US State Department reported that "right-wing extremist violence and harassment of racial minorities and foreigners were problems”.
Human trafficking
There has been a growing awareness of
human trafficking
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extrac ...
as a human rights issue in Europe (''see main article:
trafficking in human beings
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extracti ...
''). The end of communism and collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia has contributed to an increase in human trafficking, with the majority of victims being women forced into prostitution. Germany is a transit and destination country for persons, primarily women, trafficked mainly from Central and Eastern Europe and from Africa for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Russia alone accounted for one-quarter of the 1,235 identified victims reported in 2003, the latest year for which statistics are available. For the first time, Germany's statistics included German nationals who numbered 127.
LGBT rights
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is a ...
) rights in Germany have evolved significantly over the course of the last decades. As of June 29, 2017, Germany legalized same-sex marriage, which provides the same rights as opposite-sex married couples receive. Same-sex step adoption has also been legal since 2005 and was expanded in 2013 to allow someone in a same-sex relationship to adopt a child already adopted by their partner; however, joint adoption has not yet been legislated. Discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity vary across Germany, but discrimination in employment and the provision of goods and services is in principle banned countrywide. Transgender people have been allowed to change their legal gender since 1980. The law initially required them to undergo surgical alteration of their genitals in order to have key identity documents changed. This has since been declared unconstitutional.
Intersex rights
Intersex
Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...
people in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
have no recognition of their rights to physical integrity and bodily autonomy, and no specific protections from discrimination on the basis of sex characteristics. In response to an inquiry by the German Ethics Council in 2012, the government passed legislation in 2013 designed to classify some intersex infants to a ''
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' third category. The legislation has been criticized by civil society and human rights organizations as misguided.
Research published in 2016 found no substantive reduction in numbers of
intersex medical interventions on infants and children with intersex conditions in the period from 2005 to 2014.
The United Nations and Amnesty International have joined local
intersex civil society organizations in calling for protections.
See also
*
Antiziganism
*
Environmental racism in Europe
*
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
References
External links
Archive of Germany reportsby
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
.
2008 Country report on Israel by
Freedom House
Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...
.
Archive of Germany reportsby
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
.
Censorship cases in Germanyreported by the
International Freedom of Expression Exchange
IFEX, formerly International Freedom of Expression Exchange, is a global network of 124 independent non-governmental organisations that work at a local, national, regional, or international level to defend and promote freedom of expression as a ...
World Press Freedom Reviewby the
International Press Institute2008U.S. State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
country report on human rights practices in Germany.
2010U.S. State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
Human Rights Report: Germany.
2008U.S. State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
country report on religious freedom in Germany.
Review of Germanyby the
United Nations Human Rights Council's
Universal Periodic Review, February 2, 2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Human Rights In Germany