Ban on quantification

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The prohibition of quantification is a term from criminal law . It states that abstract considerations of the legal good life are inadmissible. Accordingly, it is inadmissible to set off numerical or qualitative human life against each other. One also speaks of the prohibition of balancing lives.

Examples

  • According to the ban on quantification, a person is worth just as much as an indefinitely larger number of other people. Likewise, a qualitative distinction must not be made: for example, a dying old person is worth just as much as a healthy toddler.
  • On February 15, 2006, the Federal Constitutional Court suspended Section 14 (3) of the Aviation Security Act passed at the beginning of 2005 . This should authorize pilots of interceptors in emergency situations, such as. B. the attempt to use an aircraft as a flying bomb, to shoot down the affected machine on the instructions of the Minister of Defense. Since the life of the passengers on board is worth as much as that of possible victims on the ground, the judges declared the paragraph to be unconstitutional.

reasons

The quantification of human life would run counter to the human dignity of Article 1, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1 of the Basic Law . Likewise, it would not be compatible with the principle of equality in Article 3 of the Basic Law.

Exceptions

Within the dogmatics of criminal law it is very controversial whether and if so when exceptions to the prohibition of quantification are permissible. In practice, on the other hand, there are certainly cases in which, for example, the “ final rescue shot ” at the hostage-taker makes an exception to the prohibition on quantification.

A comparably difficult decision-making situation with prioritization of medical assistance arises in the event of a mass casualty in major accidents, catastrophes, wars or terrorist attacks in which numerous life-threatening, seriously and slightly injured people need to be cared for with a limited number of doctors and paramedics. The rules generally communicated today in emergency medicine training in the context of such a decision-making situation - called triage - are aimed at ensuring that as many people as possible survive the event with as little damage as possible. In this way one tries to achieve the best possible result for the collective of injured parties, whereby the interests of the individual have to take second place.