Federal Constitutional Court - Press office -

Press release no. 63/2011 of 20 October 2011

Order of 12 October 2011 – 2 BvR 633/11 –

Another successful constitutional complaint lodged by a person committed to a psychiatric
 hospital as a measure of correction and prevention against compulsory medical treatment – 
legislation in Baden-Württemberg held unconstitutional as well


The complainant has been confined in a psychiatric hospital as a measure 
of correction and prevention since the year 2005. In June 2009, the 
hospital to which the complainant was committed informed him that he 
would be treated with an antipsychotic, and that if necessary the 
treatment would even be carried out against his will by an injection 
performed after immobilising him. The legal remedies lodged against that 
were unsuccessful. 

By means of his constitutional complaint, the complainant asserts among 
other things that it is impermissible to compulsorily administer drugs 
to him if – undisputedly – his condition is not a case of psychosis but 
merely of a personality disorder. He further asserts that a clear-cut 
psychiatric indication has not been established, and that he suffers 
from considerable side-effects of the medication. 

§ 8.2 sentence 2 of the Act on the Committal of Mentally Ill Persons 
(Gesetz über die Unterbringung psychisch Kranker) of the Land (state of) 
Baden-Württemberg (Committal Act, Unterbringungsgesetz – UBG BW), which 
is the legal basis in the case at hand, provides that the person 
committed to an institution has to tolerate the measures of examination 
and treatment which are required according to the rules of the medical 
profession to examine and to treat the disease to the extent that the 
examination and treatment does not fall under subsection 3. § 8 .3 UBG 
BW provides that the patient’s consent is (only) required for surgery 
and for operations that involve a considerable danger to the patient’s 
life or health. 

The Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court decided that § 8.2 
sentence 2 UBG BW is incompatible with the fundamental right to physical 
integrity under Article 2.2 sentence 1 of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz – 
GG) in conjunction with the fundamental right to effective legal 
protection under Article 19.4 GG and that it is hence void. The rulings 
of the Regional Court (Landgericht) and of the Higher Regional Court 
(Oberlandesgericht) which were challenged by the constitutional 
complaint were annulled. They already violate the complainant’s 
fundamental right to physical integrity because no constitutional legal 
basis exists for the compulsory treatment whose lawfulness they had 
confirmed. 

In essence, the decision is based on the following considerations: 

In its order of 23 March 2011, the Federal Constitutional Court 
clarified the constitutional prerequisites of the permissibility of the 
compulsory medical treatment of a person committed to a psychiatric 
hospital as a measure of correction and prevention aimed at achieving 
the objective of the measure (see Federal Constitutional Court, order of 
the Second Senate of 23 March 2011 – 2 BvR 882/09 –, Europäische 
Grundrechte-Zeitschrift – EuGRZ 2011, pp. 321 et seq., and press release 
no. 28/2011 of 15 April 2011). 

Even in conjunction with other provisions of the Baden-Württemberg 
Committal Act, the authorisation for the encroachment granted under § 
8.2 sentence 2 UBG BW, does not satisfy the standards which the order 
puts in concrete terms. In particular, according to the provision, 
compulsory medical treatment of a person committed to a psychiatric 
hospital as a measure of correction and prevention which is aimed at 
achieving the objective of the measure is not restricted to cases of 
illness-induced lack of capacity to understand, which is 
constitutionally required. § 8.2 sentence 2 UBG BW also does not comply 
with a number of other requirements derived from the principle of 
proportionality which a law that grants the authorisation to perform the 
compulsory medical treatment of a person committed to a psychiatric 
hospital must satisfy. 


This press release is also available in the original german version.