Politicians have been discussing for years whether the term “race” should be deleted from the Basic Law. The traffic light has now decided against it, citing protection against discrimination.
The traffic light coalition no longer wants to pursue the plan to delete the term “race” from the Basic Law, which was already discussed in the previous election period. As it became known on Friday from coalition circles, right-wing politicians from the SPD, Greens and FDP decided not to change the wording after the Central Council of Jews in Germany raised concerns about it. The “Rheinische Post” first reported on it.
Article 3 of the Basic Law currently states: “No one may be disadvantaged or favored because of their gender, their ancestry, their race, their language, their homeland and origin, their faith, their religious or political views. No one may be disadvantaged because of their disability. “
The ban on discrimination arose against the background of National Socialism and was intended to prevent racist discrimination. However, critics complain that the current wording of the constitution also conveys the idea that human races actually exist.
The term reminds us of the murder of millions of people
The President of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, spoke out last year against deleting the term. This is reminiscent of German history, especially “of the persecution and murder of millions of people, primarily Jews; of the horrors of the Shoah,” he wrote in a guest article for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. If you delete this memory from the constitution, “at some point we will also delete it from our memory.”
The deputy SPD parliamentary group leader, Dirk Wiese, told the German Press Agency that the mothers and fathers of the Basic Law had formulated this passage as a clear signal against the racial ideology of the National Socialists. “Linguistically, it must be seen in the light of its time and would certainly be worded differently today,” he added.
Nevertheless, it has a clear protective function that must be taken into account with every new formulation. In this respect, it is right to take concerns from civil society very seriously and not to act hastily.
Positive feedback also from the Union
The Union welcomed the coalition’s decision. The general counsel of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Ansgar Heveling (CDU), told the “Rheinische Post”: “It’s good that reason prevailed at the traffic lights. Our Basic Law is too bad for compulsive symbolic politics with unforeseeable legal consequences.”
According to the newspaper, one of the reasons for abandoning the project is that the legal implementation of the deletion is too complicated. The Union faction’s legal expert, Günter Krings (CDU), made a similar statement: The attempt to remove the Basic Law from its historical context at this point was “harmful and doomed to failure” from the outset.
“The fathers and mothers of the Basic Law deliberately wrote it into the constitutional text in sharp contrast to the criminal and inhumane policies of the Nazis.”
The plan was set out in the coalition agreement
The traffic light coalition had originally agreed in its coalition agreement to delete the term “race” from the Basic Law. The Union had rejected a corresponding change to the Basic Law in the previous legislative period and was sharply criticized for it, especially by the Greens.
The lawyer Daniel Thym explained at the time: “Legally speaking, a change to the Basic Law would have limited effects because the concept of race is also found in the European Convention on Human Rights as well as the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the anti-discrimination guidelines of the European Union.” However, the Bundestag and Bundesrat could not change these at all. Such a change to the Basic Law could still be important as a symbol.
The Saarland state parliament decided on Wednesday to delete the term “race” from the state constitution when listing possible reasons for discrimination. In the future, Article 12 will instead state that no one may be disadvantaged or favored “due to racist attributions”. The term “race” cannot be found in Thuringia’s state constitution either. It was removed from Brandenburg’s constitution in 2013.
Source: Stern
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