Yesterday the Insitut für Weltanschauungsrecht (ifw - Institute for Secular Law) sent an open letter to the Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection, Katarina Barley. This was prompted by the refusal of the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) and the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) to implement a decision of the highest court.​

The letter from ifw states: "If every state representative who does not approve of a legally binding judgement can overrule a court by using a personally commissioned and legally irrelevant expert opinion, then our country turns into an arbitrary regime. Every single administrative case poses a threat to the rule of law. This attitude towards the Federal Administrative Court ruling must, however, weigh all the more heavily, as it concerns the unlawful behaviour of a supreme federal authority. In this case, the inhumane suffering of more than one hundred applicants and the dissuasive effect of the authorities' actions on possibly thousands of terminally ill persons and their relatives, which may lead to an increase in brutal suicides and the negative social consequences in our society, contribute to a situation in which only those who have money and networks can freely determine the end of their lives by visiting liberal constitutional foreign countries in time."

After Minister Barley recently advocated to the Ministry of the Interior that court rulings should be respected, ifw now calls on her to stand up to the Federal Ministry of Health for the return to the rule of law:

"Therefore, we ask you to raise your voice for the protection of the rule of law in Germany in this case as well. Now it is time to take steps to put an end to the disregard for the rule of law by the house managements of the BMG and the BfArM as quickly as possible. To quote one of your words from the beginning: The administration's commitment to law and order must not be negotiable - that includes assisted suicide."

Here you can find the original text of the open letter by the Institut für Weltanschauungsrecht (German language):

https://weltanschauungsrecht.de/offener-brief-BMJV-sterbehilfe