Germany’s Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) wants to impose harsher punishments for attacks on police officers and other emergency responders. “Anyone who attacks people who are on duty for the public good and who expose themselves to particular dangers acts in an especially reprehensible way and must be punished accordingly,” Hubig told newspapers of the Funke Media Group. This applies not only to police officers, firefighters and rescue workers, she said, but also to doctors, nursing staff and court bailiffs.
According to a draft bill from the Justice Ministry seen by the Funke newspapers, physical attacks on police, firefighters, emergency services or bailiffs would in future carry a minimum prison sentence of six months, up from the current minimum of three months. Attacks carried out after luring emergency responders into an ambush would be punishable by a minimum sentence of one year instead of six months.
Hubig said attacks on police and rescue services had reached an “alarming level.” “Especially on New Year’s Eve, there have repeatedly been uninhibited and unacceptable assaults,” she said, adding: “The rule of law must respond decisively to this brutalization – including, and especially, through criminal law.”
The justice minister also wants to strengthen protections for doctors and other medical staff, such as nurses. Physical attacks against them should in future be punished as severely as comparable offences against police and other emergency responders. At present, special criminal provisions apply to medical personnel only when they are working in emergency services or hospital emergency departments.
Hubig’s draft legislation goes beyond protecting emergency responders. It also aims to strengthen safeguards for volunteers, local politicians and members of the European Parliament against threats and violence. Judges would be instructed to impose tougher sentences if an offence could impair “an activity serving the common good,” such as the intimidation of volunteers or local elected officials.
The justice minister is also seeking significantly tougher penalties for incitement to hatred. Instead of a maximum prison sentence of three years, courts would be able to impose sentences of up to five years. In addition, anyone sentenced to at least six months in prison for incitement could be stripped of their passive voting rights for five years, meaning they would be barred from standing for election or holding public office.
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