Court dismisses parents
Children without a measles vaccination lose their legal right to a daycare place
March 15, 2024, 1:45 p.m
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In November 2023, a daycare center in Rhineland-Palatinate will take in unvaccinated children. The parents provide a certificate proving the temporary inability to vaccinate, but cannot give any medical reasons. A court decides: In such cases, the daycare center may refuse to care for the children.
If a child in Rhineland-Palatinate has no immunity to measles, he or she has no legal right to a daycare place. This was decided by the Mainz Administrative Court. Accordingly, the legal right to a daycare place without measles protection conflicts with the legal ban on childcare. The certificates submitted in this case were therefore not qualified certificates of inability to vaccinate.
The applicants’ children are not vaccinated against measles and are not otherwise immune to it. In November 2023, they were admitted to a daycare center with a medical certificate stating that they were temporarily unable to be vaccinated. After the certificate expired, the parents presented another temporary certificate.
The daycare center then informed the parents that the children could no longer be looked after from the end of February because there was no valid proof of medical reasons against vaccination. The administrative court rejected an application from the parents for continued care of the children.
The judges decided that parents would have to prove that children have been vaccinated, have immunity or that they cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. The certificates presented by the parents were based solely on the information provided by the parents and did not contain any information about which specific medical reasons spoke against vaccination. General concerns about measles vaccination did not allow exemption from the vaccination requirement.
Health authorities may require proof
The Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court has rejected complaints from parents of school-age children against compulsory measles vaccination in several urgent proceedings. Like the previous court, the court decided in its decision that health authorities may require proof of vaccination or immunity against measles in order to attend school, provided there is no contraindication. If proof is not presented, a fine can also be threatened.
The responsible Senate justified its decision by saying that the provisions of the Infection Protection Act regarding the obligation to provide evidence were not obviously unconstitutional in view of the highly contagious viral disease with potentially serious complications. The obligation to provide evidence does interfere with the parental rights enshrined in the Basic Law. However, the regulation is proportionate because it pursues a legitimate purpose and is not disproportionate to the severity of the interference.