After years of litigation, a Bavarian police officer can now get a tattoo with the words “Aloha”. The approval for the tattoo had been granted for the “specific individual case”, said the Ministry of the Interior in Munich on Friday and confirmed a report by the “Spiegel”. However, the condition is that the man covers the tattoo on duty in such a way that it cannot be seen.
How the Bavarian police will generally deal with tattoos on officers in the future has not yet been regulated. The regulations are currently being “updated”, the ministry said: “Since this process has not yet been completed, we cannot provide any further information on this.”
In 2013, the police officer had unsuccessfully applied for a permit for the tattoo at the police headquarters in Central Franconia, after which various courts dealt with the issue.
In the proceedings before the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig in 2020, he explained that the planned tattoo on his forearm should remind him of his honeymoon in Hawaii. “I just like that.” He’s not a worse police officer just because he’s tattooed. At the time, the Federal Administrative Court decided that the tattoo was not compatible with the Bavarian civil service law. Most recently, however, the Federal Constitutional Court decided in mid-2022 that the case had to be examined again. A new decision has not yet been made.
According to “Spiegel”, the police headquarters in Central Franconia gave the official permission by notice. Accordingly, the letter said that the background to the decision was a “change in administrative practice in dealing with tattoos”.
“Of course I’m happy,” the police officer told the magazine. However, it was his goal to wear the tattoo openly.
