Bavaria, located in Southern Germany, will discontinue imposing penalties related to COVID-19.
The coronavirus outbreak has wrapped up, yet violations of coronavirus regulations continue to occupy the courts in Bavaria. As per Minister-President Söder, this is soon to change. All on-going trials relating to the coronavirus pandemic will be put on hold.
As Minister-President Markus Söder stated at the CSU parliamentary group retreat in Kloster Banz, the ongoing administrative penalty proceedings associated with the coronavirus pandemic will now be discontinued and ended. "There are still processes from past times, when there were numerous complaints about coronavirus: administrative penalty proceedings. And these unfinished administrative penalty proceedings will now be discontinued and terminated," said Minister-President Markus Söder. "We're after peace now," added the CSU lead. He did not supply information on the number of still-open proceedings.
When inquired about how the discontinuation of the proceedings would be executed, Söder declined to provide specifics. He pointed to the fact that the era of coronavirus fines is long behind us. "So there's some kind of statute of limitations, and thus I believe that legal peace is advantageous at this time. It's also usually a sign to everyone who still wrestled with the times that the state also acknowledges the need for peace at this point."
Recently, a counterargument against the discontinuation of the proceedings was the issue of equal treatment for people who have already paid their administrative penalty. "Consistently, this money should also be returned to these people," stipulates the leader of the Bavarian FDP, Martin Hagen.
At the beginning of the previous year, the Bavarian State Ministry of Health responded to an inquiry from the Bavarian AfD parliamentary group, stating that a total of approximately 237,000 proceedings had been conducted in Bavaria due to violations of the rules, of which around 38,000 were still open at the time. A total of approximately 40 million euros in fines had been imposed in Bavaria as of the beginning of 2023.
In response to the ongoing administrative penalty proceedings associated with the coronavirus pandemic, Minister-President Söder announced that they will be discontinued and terminated. The Commission, presumably referring to the governing body responsible for overseeing these proceedings, will no longer be handling these unfinished cases due to the advocation for peace and the passage of time.
