Final rescue shot
As a final rescue shot (also targeted fatal shot ) is in Germany of targeted lethal use of firearms by the police referred to in terms of emergency risk of third parties to avert, if no other means are available. One area of application is hostage-taking , where neither negotiations nor the use of non-lethal weapons offer realistic prospects of success.
In practice, the final rescue shot is very rare. In the ten years from 1988 to 1997, five cases were counted in the Federal Republic of Germany and later in Germany as a whole. Frequent reasons for the police in Germany to use firearms against persons are non-fatal shots for emergency aid, shots due to a supposed or real self-defense situation of the shooting police officer, the prevention of criminal acts or the escape of a criminal.
In Austria this is referred to as the “permitted, life-threatening use of weapons” ( Weapons Use Act 1969 ). There is no standardized term in Switzerland. The term final rescue shot has been criticized as playing down ( euphemism ) since its first use and is not used in the police laws of the federal states.
Legal basis
Germany
The legal basis for the targeted fatal shot was drafted in Germany in 1973 - as a result of the 1972 Olympic attack in Munich . While it was initially only included in the state laws in Bavaria, Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate, since then 13 of the 16 states (exceptions: Berlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein) have included it in their police laws , which accordingly the fundamental right to life ( Article 2, Paragraph 2, Clause 1 of the Basic Law ).
The final rescue shot does not have to be threatened if it is otherwise not possible to avert the danger in good time. It is also permitted against people under the age of 14 (exception: Bremen), as the regulation means that it is the only means of averting a current danger to life or limb.
In the police laws of Baden-Württemberg ( Section 54 (2 ) PolG ), Bavaria ( Article 83 (2) sentence 2 PAG ), Brandenburg (Section 66 (2) sentence 2 PolG ), Hesse (Section 60 (2) sentence 2 HSOG ), Lower Saxony (Section 76 (2) sentence 2 SOG ), of Rhineland-Palatinate (Section 63 (2) sentence 2 POG ), the Saarland (Section 57 (1) sentence 2 SPolG ), Saxony (Section 34 (2 ) PolG ), Saxony-Anhalt (Section 65 paragraph 2 sentence 2 SOG LSA ) and Thuringia (§ 64 paragraph 2 sentence 2 ThürPAG ) have almost identical rules. Only in Hesse, where there is talk of “a” (instead of “the”) present danger ”, Saarland, where it means“ turning away ”instead of“ defense ”, and Bavaria, where“ danger to life or limb of a person ”is used "danger of death or the current risk of a serious violation of physical integrity" is called, departing from the wording of the provision after the final rescue shot is only as. last resort to avert an acute danger to the body permitted or life:
- A shot that is almost certainly fatal is only permitted if it is the only means of averting a current threat to life or the current risk of serious injury to physical integrity.
The wording of the regulation in Bremen (Section 46 (2), sentences 2 and 3 BremPolG ) differs considerably from those in the other federal states. A fundamental deviation is primarily that a Bremen police officer is generally not obliged to carry out a final rescue shot on the order of an authorized person . The decision as to whether this measure needs to be taken rests solely with him:
- If the law enforcement officer uses the firearm as the only means and the necessary defense to ward off an unlawful attack with present danger to life or present danger of serious injury to the physical integrity of himself or of another, his action is permissible even if it is inevitable that death of the attacker leads; to this extent, the basic right to life (Art. 2, Paragraph 2, Clause 1 of the Basic Law) is restricted. Section 42 (1) sentence 1 (acting by order) does not apply in the case of sentence 2.
In the Hamburg Police Act (Section 25 (2 ) HbgSOG ), the final rescue shot is also exempted from the obligation to issue instructions. An "imminent" danger is required for its use:
- A shot that is almost certainly fatal is only permissible if it is the only means of averting an imminent danger to life or the imminent danger of serious injury to physical integrity. Section 20 (1) sentence 1 does not apply in the case of sentence 1.
The police laws in Berlin ( ASOG ), Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania ( SOG ) Schleswig-Holstein ( LVwG ), and the federal police ( UZwG ) do not include the final rescue shot. Targeted killing can only be justified here by resorting to self-defense or an emergency .
Since February 2010, the North Rhine-Westphalian Police Act has also included a regulation on the final rescue shot (Section 63 II sentence 2 PolG NRW). The wording corresponds to the first mentioned police laws.
The first final rescue shot in Germany was carried out during a Hamburg bank robbery on April 18, 1974 . A Colombian killed a police officer and taken hostage during a bank robbery. He was deliberately shot while leaving the bank.
Austria
In Austria, the life-threatening use of weapons is regulated within the framework of the police's compulsory powers by the Weapons Use Act 1969 (WaffGebrG). Separate provisions regarding a final rescue shot as in Germany do not exist in Austria; all provisions of the WaffGebrG must be observed in such an emergency situation. A targeted killing of a person, taking into account the provisions of § 7 WaffGebrG, is permissible in extreme situations (hostage-takers threaten the imminent killing of a hostage). Targeted killing to make someone incapable of resisting or to escape or to end an escape is out of the question.
Switzerland
In Switzerland, because the cantons are responsible for the police force for the use of firearms, the various regulations of the individual cantons apply. Only a few of them have an actual police law and questions about the use of weapons are usually regulated in service instructions of the administration. The absolute limit stipulated by the Federal Constitution for the use of weapons by the police is the right to the life of every person and the principle of proportionality of the means of coercion that must be observed in all administrative measures (as in the use of firearms).
The final rescue shot is best known in Switzerland from the killing of a gunman in Chur in March 2000. The responsible cantonal police commander was finally acquitted of the accusation of intentional killing.
criticism
The final rescue shot is controversial. On the one hand, the criticism is directed against the terminology, so critics see in the term final rescue shot a conceptual trivialization ( euphemism ) of killing a person. The final rescue shot could alternatively be called a targeted fatal shot . Erich Fried dedicated himself to this topic in 1981 with the poem "Linguistic End Solution".
Above all, however, it is controversial whether there is any need for a positive legal standardization of the fatal rescue shot (since self-defense and emergency to protect the physical integrity of the police officer and third parties are practically undisputed), as well as to what extent such a regulation that goes beyond self-defense and emergency is at all permissible and politically desirable. On the one hand, the regulation gives the civil servant more legal certainty , but on the other hand concerns have been expressed that a legal regulation would encourage the police to use it more frequently. In particular, even without a simultaneous obligation to use the less powerful targeted shot to induce only an incapacity to act (for example on the soft parts of the trunk or the limbs) instead of the surefire shot (on vital organs or especially the head), the fundamental principle of proportionality between the means used and the recognized means Purpose of the action disregarded. There is also the principle prohibition of quantification , which is affected here.
On the other hand, it is argued that, depending on the dangerous situation, the averting of the danger to life can only be achieved if the action on an interferer is suitable for inducing the immediate inability to act (the so-called man - stopping effect ). This means that the time frame from acting on the perpetrator to reaching the incapacity to act should be kept as short as possible in order to prevent further action by the perpetrator.
Immediate incapacity to act cannot be produced by shooting limbs or trunk or organs (liver, kidneys, heart), but only by switching off the central nervous system without loss of time, which can only be achieved by hitting the cerebellum or the brain stem.
Advocacy of practice
The final rescue shot is u. a. Tolerated by high representatives of the Catholic Church as the only way to preserve an innocent life, as "ethically justified". Even Amnesty International sees the final rescue shot at as an act of self-defense of the state to direct damage that causes the violence of third parties to avoid.
literature
- Manuel Holder: The final rescue shot. Police regulations and their constitutionality. GRIN Verlag, Norderstedt 2006, ISBN 978-3-63871078-7
- Jan Arno Hessbruegge: Human rights and personal self-defense in international law . Oxford University Press, New York, NY 2017, ISBN 9780190655020 .
- Anton Georg Schuster: Final rescue shot. Theological-ethical investigation into the final rescue shot as a lex specialis. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1996, ( Forum interdisciplinary ethics. Volume 14), ISBN 978-3-631-30203-3 .
- Martin Wagner: For life and death. The Basic Law and the “final rescue shot”. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1992, ( values and norms, ethics, religion. Volume 5), ISBN 3-525-78325-6 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Civil Rights & Police / CILIP Paper No. 62, online
- ^ Krey / Meyer : Journal for legal policy . 1973, p. 1 ff.
- ↑ A fatal shot - right off the bat - DER SPIEGEL 46/1986 . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1986, pp. 77 ( online ).
- ↑ Law and Ordinance Gazette (GV.NRW.) , Accessed on June 21, 2010
- ↑ The new police law in North Rhine-Westphalia ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 21, 2010
- ↑ «Final rescue shot» never let go of him ( Memento from January 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Gerd Fritz - "Introduction to historical semantics", Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-484-25142-5
- ↑ Norbert Pütter, Police Firearms Use / A Statistical Overview , Citizens' Rights & Police / CILIP 62 (1/99) (accessed on Aug. 14, 2009) .
- ↑ Final rescue shot: Only NRW warns of "lower instincts" ( page no longer accessible , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Article in the newsletter of the German Police Union, Lower Saxony edition, No. 14/2003, p. 4 (accessed on Aug. 14, 2009) (PDF file; 86 kB).
- ↑ www.amnesty.de ( Memento of the original from March 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In the section "But surely the state sometimes has no other option than to take a person's life?"
