Reinhard Merkel

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Reinhard Merkel (2011)

Reinhard Merkel (born April 12, 1950 in Hof ) is a retired German professor for criminal law and legal philosophy at the University of Hamburg . From 2012 to 2020 he was a member of the German Ethics Council .

Life

Reinhard Merkel comes from a Franconian Protestant family. The mother is a PhD in German and the father is a lawyer. His brother is the political scientist Wolfgang Merkel . Merkel took part as a swimmer in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, where he finished sixth in the 400 m individual medley and was eliminated in the preliminary round in the 200 m medley. He belonged to the club Blau-Weiß Bochum .

He then studied law at the Ruhr University Bochum and the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg as well as law, philosophy and literature at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . There he also passed his state examination in law. In Munich he was initially a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Social Law and an assistant at the Institute for Legal Philosophy. Between 1988 and 1990 he was editor of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit . After receiving his doctorate in Munich in 1993 and his habilitation in 1997 at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main , he began teaching in 1998, initially as a lecturer at the Universities of Bielefeld and Rostock and since 1999 at the Faculty of Law at the University of Hamburg . At the end of the 2015 summer semester, Merkel retired.

At the suggestion of the federal government, she was a member of the German Ethics Council from 2012 to 2020 and, according to the FAZ, was not afraid of uncomfortable topics.

In April 2020, on Merkel's 70th birthday, a commemorative publication was published in which over 100 authors paid tribute to his work .

He is a member of the advisory board of the Giordano Bruno Foundation (gbs), the Institute for Weltanschauungsrecht (ifw) and the Hans Albert Institute.

Viewpoints

Merkel became known to a wider public with her comments on biopolitics. He advocated research on embryos (see Embryo Protection Act ).

Reinhard Merkel published a monograph on free will and legal guilt in 2008 . In 2009 he and other authors presented a memorandum on the neuroethical assessment of neuro-enhancement .

In 2008 Merkel declared that he considered at least the threat of torture (so-called rescue torture ) to be legitimate in self-defense situations .

While in the spring of 2011 military aircraft from several NATO countries supported insurgents against the then Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi , Merkel doubted that the present mandate of the UN Security Council would provide legitimacy.

In 2012, Merkel turned against the legal regulation of circumcision for underage boys for religious reasons. This is a massive interference with the constitutionally protected physical integrity of the child. He sharply criticized the draft law submitted by the Federal Ministry of Justice in an interview with ZEIT and in an article for the Süddeutsche Zeitung .

In the Syria conflict in 2013 he also saw the EU as an “arsonist” and criticized a “suggestive lowering of the legitimation threshold” in order to achieve a regime change through indirect intervention .

The Russian military intervention in the Crimea in 2014 was, according to Merkel, although illegal under international law because it violates the interstate ban on intervention, but no annexation , but to support a secession - an assessment of the international law as Anne Peters and Claus Kress disagreed. Despite all the outrage over the Russian approach, Merkel said, there was no serious doubt in this country that the result of the referendum in Crimea expressed the authentic will of a large majority of the Crimean population. Whether the official results were correct in detail is irrelevant.

In October 2018, he was a co-signatory of the criminal charges that were submitted to the public prosecutor's offices at the headquarters of all 27 dioceses across Germany following the study on sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests, deacons and male religious in the area of ​​the German Bishops' Conference . At that time he criticized the assessment of the Lower Saxony Justice Minister Barbara Havliza (CDU) as "absurd" because she had claimed in an interview that the public prosecutor's offices did not have enough evidence to justify an initial suspicion. One should just imagine, according to Merkel, that another institution, a company, for example, would go public and admit that there were thousands of internal sexual abuse of children. Company representatives would express their deep regret and apologize to the victims - and simply refuse to disclose the perpetrator names known to them to the investigative authorities. The prosecutors would send the police out on the spot to seize evidence. Regarding the requirement of the criminal investigation, Merkel said: “All forms of sexual abuse of children are serious offenses. It is not uncommon for them to destroy entire biographies in childhood. Something like that cannot only be dealt with internally. Legally and morally that would be out of the question. "

Merkel has been speaking for several years about the regulation of abortions and the right to information for women and doctors. In the public hearing of the Legal Committee of the Bundestag on Section 219a of the Criminal Code on February 18, 2019, he criticized "major constitutional inconsistencies" in the later adopted draft law of the Grand Coalition (CDU / CSU, SPD) and called for Section 219a of the Criminal Code to be deleted.

In questions of euthanasia , Merkel advocates free self-determination at the end of life. For example, in 2018 in the FAZ in the dispute with Udo Di Fabio , who had previously prepared an expert opinion for the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM), he confirmed that according to the judgment of the Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG) of March 2, 2017, the state was in extreme cases In the emergency of a patient, he was obliged to exceptionally permit the acquisition of the anesthetic sodium pentobarbital for the purpose of suicide. In the Bundestag health committee, Merkel recommended an amendment to the law. The BVerwG made a "legally and ethically convincing decision". In the event of a new regulation, the legislature should “not withdraw this decision to the detriment of everyone”, but rather “expressly and unequivocally enforce it in legal form”. With regard to the possibilities of palliative medicine, Merkel added, suffering is not the same as pain and can go far beyond its presence and effect. In February 2020 he assessed the annulment of § 217 StGB, introduced in 2015, by the Federal Constitutional Court as "correct and wise". The legislature should not clarify this question with the penal code, but with the law on administrative offenses. Merkel: "Then we have a liberal, autonomy-friendly regulation of this whole sphere."

In the debate about triage decisions in the allocation or refusal of ventilation places for COVID-19 patients, Merkel made it clear that it would be killing if life-saving measures are canceled. Older people have just as much right to ventilation as younger people. He explained the moral and legal problems of the various dilemma constellations on March 31, 2020 on ZDF with Markus Lanz .

Awards

In 1991 Merkel received the Jean Améry Prize for essay writing. In 2010 he was accepted into the Leopoldina .

Publications

literature

  • Jochen Bung, Anette Grünewald, Dorothea Magnus, Holm Putzke, Jörg Scheinfeld, Jan Christoph Bublitz (Eds.): Festschrift for Reinhard Merkel on his 70th birthday, Part I and II (= Writings on Criminal Law (SR), Volume 355). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3-428-15566-8 (Vol. I: XVIII, 928 pages; Vol. II: XII, 744 pages).

Web links

Commons : Reinhard Merkel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Reinhard Merkel's curriculum vitae. German Ethics Council, accessed April 12, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Aurel Croissant, Sascha Kneip, Alexander Petring: Introduction. In this. (Ed.): Democracy, dictatorship, justice. Festschrift for Wolfgang Merkel. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, Wiesbaden, 2017, pp. 1–37, here: p. 3.
  3. ↑ Hannah Bethke: The criminal lawyer Reinhard Merkel for the seventieth. In: FAZ.net. April 12, 2020, accessed April 24, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Internet editor : Reinhard Merkel - Directory of persons - University of Hamburg. (No longer available online.) In: www.jura.uni-hamburg.de. Archived from the original on May 3, 2016 ; Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Reinhard Merkel - member of the German Ethics Council. Retrieved April 12, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Hannah Bethke: Reinhard Merkel for the 70th: Limits of the law . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed April 12, 2020]).
  7. ↑ Table of contents: Law - Philosophy - Literature | Festschrift for Reinhard Merkel on his 70th birthday. Volumes I and II. Duncker & Humblot, April 12, 2020, accessed on May 6, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Jochen Bung, Anette Grünewald, Dorothea Magnus, Holm Putzke, Jörg Scheinfeld, Jan Christoph Bublitz (eds.): Festschrift for Reinhard Merkel on his 70th birthday, Part I and II (= Writings on Criminal Law (SR), Volume 355). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3-428-15566-8 (Vol. I: XVIII, 928 pages; Vol. II: XII, 744 pages).
  9. ↑ Merkel, Reinhard Giordano Bruno Foundation . Retrieved March 1, 2018.
  10. ↑ Prof. Dr. Reinhard Merkel | ifw - Institute for Weltanschauungsrecht. Accessed March 31, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Advisory Board - Hans Albert Institute. Retrieved on April 5, 2020 (German).
  12. ↑ Hannah Bethke: Reinhard Merkel for the 70th: Limits of the law . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed April 12, 2020]).
  13. ↑ See the criticism of Tonio Walter in time : punishment without guilt? September 5, 2008.
  14. ↑ The Optimized Brain. A memorandum on the opportunities and risks of neuroenhancement. In: Brain & Mind 11/2009, pp. 40-48 ( PDF; 598 kB ( Memento from August 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ))
  15. ↑ SciLogs : Bloggewitter: Neuro-Enhancement - The Memorandum
  16. ↑ Jörg Auf dem Hövel: Between self-determination and self-exploitation . In: Telepolis . December 21, 2009 (interview with Merkel)
  17. ↑ http://www.deutschlandradiokultur.de/notwehr-zugunsten-des-kindes.954.de.mhtml?dram:article_id=143498
  18. ↑ Reinhard Merkel: “And bombs on Damascus next week?” The intervention in Libya creates false expectations, disavows the UN and damages international law. Die Zeit, No. 14/2011 of March 31, 2011.
  19. ↑ Till Schwarze: Circumcision: "A pathetic bill". Interview for a limited time online , October 1, 2012.
  20. ↑ Reinhard Merkel: Circumcision Debate: The Skin of Another. Süddeutsche.de , August 30, 2012.
  21. ↑ Syria: The West is guilty. FAZ.de, August 2, 2013, accessed on January 23, 2017 .
  22. ↑ Crimea and international law , FAZ from April 7, 2014.
  23. ↑ http://www.giessener-anzeiger.de/lokales/hochschule/annexion-der-krim-war-krass-voelkerrechtswidrig_14948132.htm
  24. ↑ Annexation of the Crimea: "Act of Aggression". In: Spiegel Online . March 31, 2014, accessed June 9, 2018 .
  25. ↑ Germany-wide criminal complaints against sexual offenders of the Catholic Church. Retrieved April 12, 2020 .
  26. ↑ Reinhard Merkel in an interview with Raoul Löbbert: Abuse scandal: A case for the public prosecutor. In: Zeit Online. November 9, 2018, accessed April 12, 2020 .
  27. ↑ Michael Wojtek: German Bundestag - Experts see the proposal for criminal law paragraph 219a largely critical. Retrieved April 12, 2020 .
  28. ↑ Reinhard Merkel: The state can help with suicide. FAZ Einspruch, February 15, 2018, accessed on April 12, 2020 .
  29. ^ Kosfeld: German Bundestag - advice on help for the seriously ill. Retrieved April 12, 2020 .
  30. ↑ Reinhard Merkel in conversation with Vladimir Balzer: Euthanasia Judgment - A Strengthening of Autonomy. Deutschlandfunk Kultur, February 26, 2020, accessed on April 12, 2020 (German).
  31. ↑ Reinhard Merkel: Ventilation in Medicine: A Question of Law and Ethics . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed April 12, 2020]).
  32. ↑ Merkel at Markus Lanz. zdf, accessed April 12, 2020 .
  33. ↑ Member entry of Reinhard Merkel (with picture and CV) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on July 18, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Merkel, Reinhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German legal scholar, essayist and swimmer
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Hof (Saale)