By Gunnar Schupelius
SPD and Greens are planning nationwide parking bans for residents. This encroachment on freedom is neither compatible with the road traffic regulations nor with fundamental rights, says Gunnar Schupelius.
The Greens want to abolish the car, regardless of whether it runs on petrol, diesel or an electric motor. The SPD and the left are going along this path more and more often.
Parking spaces are disappearing everywhere, and the number of lanes is shrinking. Traffic is paralyzed with so-called model projects, such as in Friedrichstrasse.
The fight against cars is increasingly taking on extreme forms: in April, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg decided to completely ban parking in Graefekiez. Around 20,000 residents will no longer be able to drive home in their private cars.
In Mitte, the SPD now wants to follow the same plan: Parking is to be banned in the Scheunenviertel between Torstrasse and Sophienstrasse and in the Westphalian Quarter between Alt-Moabit and the Spree. The streets become play streets with a maximum speed of seven kilometers per hour.
Here, too, there is talk of “model projects” that last 12 months and are to be “scientifically evaluated”. However, experience shows that such model projects do not end, but remain and are not evaluated very convincingly.
Anyone who forbids parking also indirectly forbids driving, but not directly. And this is exactly where the political trick lies: A directly ordered driving ban would not be possible under German law without concrete justification.
The German Bundestag came to this conclusion in 2008. In a report by the scientific service at the time, it was said that the road traffic regulations offered “no suitable basis for issuing general, nationwide driving bans for the purpose of enforcing general political considerations of environmental or climate protection”.
Since a driving ban would not be possible, a parking ban is tried. This will also not be legally tenable, because it violates the principle of proportionality: Anyone who urgently needs their car, for example for business or because they work in shifts or have to look after children or the elderly, will be restricted to such an extent by the parking ban that they will not be able to drive The balance between the concerns of environmental protection and personal freedom is obviously no longer maintained. However, proportionality is one of the principles of our constitutional state.
The parking ban violates not only this principle, but probably even fundamental rights. Although there is no fundamental right to mobility, there is Article 2 (1) in the Basic Law: “Everyone has the right to the free development of their personality…”
The courts will have to clarify whether the nationwide parking ban is permissible. If you complain, you have to bring time and, above all, a lot of money for a long process. The SPD and the Greens are waiting coldly to see whether such plaintiffs exist. As long as they do what they want.
Is Gunnar Schupelius right? Call: 030/2591 73153 or email: [email protected]
