ABSTRACT
In January 2020, information about a highly contagious virus in Wuhan started to get public attention in Germany. The debate in Germany has mainly focused on questions of vertical and horizontal separation of powers, the role of expertise in the COVID-19 response and restrictions of fundamental rights as adjudicated by courts. As the meetings between federal and Lander governments continued, there was also growing criticism over their closed-door nature, which set them apart from public deliberation in Parliament. At the end of March 2020, the first Act on the Protection of the Population in the Event of an Epidemic Situation of National Significance introduced a new § 5 into the Infection Protection Act, providing the federal health ministry with far reaching powers to announce COVID-19 measures by decree. With several Länder elections and the federal general elections in September 2021, the political situation in Germany is, at the time of writing, volatile.
