German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/191,
pp. 24050-24052.
Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.
Trust is one of society’s most important resources. As is
known, it can be lost. When people no longer trust one another, the will to
cooperate stops and strife begins. When a portion of the people do not trust
the government, a fissure is formed in the social structure. When the
government, and the media close to the government,
Saskia
Esken (SPD): “Close to the government” – what do you mean by that?
stigmatize and denigrate or, indeed with the Constitution
Defense, threaten this portion of the people instead of speaking with them,
this fissure becomes deeper and the mistrust becomes greater. And, ladies and
gentlemen, when members are thrown to the ground by the police, then it may be
asked: Where have we actually arrived at in this country?
In a state of law, basic trust is institutionally secured by
means of the basic rights, ladies and gentlemen. Heribert Prantl, bei Gott no friend of the AfD – the
chief commentator of the “Suddeustche
Zeitung” – has in that regard written or spoken words worthy of note – I
cite with permission of the President: Basic rights [Grundrechte] are called basic rights because they form the basis of our lives. Basic rights
are specifically for times of emergency.If they are thrown away in times of
crisis or emergency,
Michael Grosse-Böhmer (CDU/CSU): They will not be!
then they are worth nothing, then they can be forgotten.
– Heribert Prantl, not Alexander Gauland!
The Federal government’s infection prevention law is the
greatest restriction of the basic rights in the history of the Federal
Republic. If we continue Herr Prantl’s thought process, it means: We can forget
the basic rights. The mistrust, ladies and gentlemen, will explode.
Hermann Gröhe (CDU/CSU): You are sowing it!
You see that in the streets, you see that in the aggression
which you everywhere feel.
Britta Haßelman (Greens): Yes, I have certainly seen all of you out there! What hypocrisy!
And you see it in many towns, and today also in front of the Bundestag.These people step forward for their basic rights and must not be put under observation by the Constitution Defense!
Many citizens have existential concerns and questions.
Manuela Rottmann (Greens): To that, you still have no answer!
They want not only to know how to continue with their businesses, local concerns and cultural places,
Hermann Gröhe (CDU/CSU): What do you know of culture?
but, in regards the setting aside of the basic rights, they fear for their freedom. Corona app, pursuit of contacts, digital health controls, indirect immunization obligation: All of these are symptoms of an approaching smart health dictatorship. People ask themselves, for example, whether they will have disadvantages if they do not immunize or do not wish to be registered.
Britta Haßelman (Greens): What is “indirect
immunization obligation”supposed to mean?
Then comes there a day no longer in restaurants, or at sports, or in foreign countries? Who asks something similar, as you know, is designated a conspiracy theorist.Yet in China that sort of total surveillance is already a fact and we want to go not one step along that way!
The “FAZ”, by which one will not walk too closely, in case one be spoken of as “close to the government”,
Carsten Schneider (SPD): Na ja!
twittered: The high #Corona-numbers in many Western countries raise the disturbing question of whether open societies are less suited to react to global threats than authoritarian systems.
Does anyone there wish to take the hint? Representatives of
the faculty of public law at the Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, expounded before the Bundestag’s health
committee in an experts statement – cite:
The planned §28a IfSG [infection prevention law] does not satisfy the prerequisites of parliamentary reserve and the specificity principle.The formulation permits no consideration at all of interests affected in their basic rights to be recognized, but openly wishes to one-sidedly legitimize the previous procedures during the Corona epidemic.
Thus the experts in the health committee.
“No consideration at all”, thus the matter stands. Since
what is it other than immoderate and unbalanced when the inviolability of a
dwelling is placed at disposal, when the Chancellor in all seriousness
declares, Children should be allowed to meet only one friend?
Götz Frömming (AfD): Unbelievable!
Have we then the plague in the land, Frau Chancellor?
Ladies and gentlemen, what is a pandemic of national scope?
Who defines that today prescribes the state of exception. Apparently Herr
Drosten is the present German sovereign and the arguments of other virologists
and epidemiologists which express themselves against the lockdown will be wiped
away, somewhat like the paper of Herr Streeck and the National Association of
Statutory Health Insurance Physicians which numerous doctors associations have
also signed. The signers demand a unified, nationwide warning system, which a
glance at the present situation permits one to recognize to be at hand at the
federal as well as the local levels. It puts a command in place of a ban,
self-responsibility in place of tutelage. It pleads for the promotion of
hygiene concepts in place of closings, as well as for the protection of groups
at risk by means of special preventative measures. We support such reasonable
ideas, just as we set ourselves against those emergency measures ruinous to the
economy and people’s relations.
We must yet live with the virus for many months and the
citizens know that. Most are dealing quite reasonably with the situation, just
as restaurateurs, theater people and concert organizers are dealing quite reasonably
with the situation: They have registered visitors, they have limited their
capacity, they have developed hygiene concepts, and for that they have expended
money from declining incomes. That, despite this, they are closed is unbearable
and it amounts to dictatorship.
I have in this place already said – and I will not weary of
repeating it – : The sovereign of this country is the German people represented
by this parliament. Only this parliament can decide on the restrictions of basic
rights and, after in fact weighing all arguments, on a precisely limited time.
Not once have you laid that down: A precisely limited time.
Ladies and gentlemen, that the government presents faits
accomplis to the members elected by the people contradicts the spirit of
democracy and of the Basic Law. On that account alone, we reject this law – and
not, Herr Buschmann, because we do not want this parliament, because we do not
want democracy, but because we are obviously the only democratic delegation in
this country!
I am grateful. Hopefully, others have learned something.
(The
members of the AfD rise.)
Michael Grosse-Böhmer (CDU/CSU):
Just what might you do if a really good speech were delivered?
Tino Chrupalla (AfD): You still
have not had a good one!
[trans: tem]
