Germany’s top court has ruled that, in exceptional circumstances, the country’s armed forces may use military fighting equipment on German soil. Though it stressed that the rule only applied in major emergencies.
The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled on Friday that the German Bundeswehr would be allowed to use military weaponry within the country's own borders.
The decision was reached at a full meeting of all the court judges and allows the use of weapons only in the most extreme circumstances.
The decision of all the judges was necessary after one group of judges, the Second Senate, had said it wanted to allow the military to be allowed to help individual states. That followed an action brought to the court by the states of Bavaria and Hesse.
The ruling would still not allow planes hijacked by terrorists to be shot down, but it would allow warning shots designed to force planes to land.
In the case of possible troop deployments during a national disaster, the court ruled that such decisions would have to be taken by the “government as a whole,“ rather than the defense minister alone.
rc/msh (AFP, dpa) dw de
Comments