The expanded investigative powers of the police in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are partly unconstitutional. This was announced by the Federal Constitutional Court on Wednesday. The provisions on covert surveillance measures did not fully meet the proportionality requirements. The court held that regulations on residential surveillance and online searches were wholly or partially incompatible with the Basic Law.
There are also complaints about the use of informants and undercover investigators to avert dangers.
The Karlsruhe judges are leaving a large part of the regulations in force for the time being, because it is not the powers themselves that are unconstitutional, but only the constitutional structure. The federal state’s security and regulatory law, which was reformed in 2020, must be revised by the end of the year.
The constitutional complaint was coordinated by the Society for Freedom Rights (GFF), which has criticized the tightening of police laws in almost all federal states and has already initiated several proceedings in Karlsruhe.
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