Remembering Austro-Covidistan's Return to the 1930s: A Retrospective Review of the Injection Mandate, Proposed A Year Ago
It entered into force on 4 Feb. 2022 (shame), and it was unceremoniously abrogated in June 2022--what changed history is: sustained mass protests against gov't overreach
Editorial preface: another heavy week, hence my somewhat more limited posting activity; I’m working on a longer follow-up piece on Covid in Norway (spoiler: contrary what has been claimed, Norway hasn’t recommended a fourth injection to everyone; all ‘eligible’ may merely get yet another injection, provided they ask for it.)
The below piece was written on 21 December 2021 as the first details of Austro-Covidistan’s infamous Injection Mandate became public. In a first—and worldwide, unique—instance since 9 May 1945, the Committee of Public Safety sought to enrol all residents of Austria in the biggest pharmaceutical [scam] trial of all times (so far). It triggered massive and sustained protests of tens of thousands of Austrians that eventually resulted in the law, having been passed (I’ll write something about that soon), was never implemented; in June 2022, it was unceremoniously abrogated. Sadly, the enabling legislation (the Covid-Maßnahmen-Gesetz, the Covid Mandate Acts) remains in force, hence future mandates cannot be ruled out.
I’m reposting this to commemorate the fact that Austria’s current government (consisting of a coalition of the ‘conservative’ ÖVP and the Greens) hasn’t learned a damn thing from the country’s own tragic history. May this column be a memorial to the scientifically unjustified and morally outrageous attempt to force-’vaccinate’ everyone. At the same time, this is may way of paying homage to those who chose not to comply and to resist this gross transgression.
Wehret den Anfängen! | Remember how it began.
A detailed look at the Vaxx Mandate, its implications, and the (dark) future it portends
Meet Covidistan's new tinpot dictator, Health Minister Mückstein, author and main, if not outright exclusive, beneficiary of the vaxx mandate
This has changed a couple of days ago, and here’s a detailed look at the draft legislation, submitted to parliament and the public by Health (sic) Minister Mückstein.
I’ve decided to go through the draft legislation and highlight a few very important parts, mainly due to the anodyne and outright speculative (as in ‘no specifics given’) nature of much ‘alternative’ reporting (see here or here for examples). Don’t get me wrong, the website in question, Global Research, is a good one, but these two exemplary pieces are not helpful when it comes to further out understanding of the legislation.
One last thing to note: there’s a lot of legalese in this post, due to the cumbersome language employed. I tried to translate the various segments below to be as close to the original as possible, with some light editing for clarity and concision. I’ve also added brief highlights of problematic aspects to each of these sections, with a longer comment at the bottom. Keep in mind that I’m not a lawyer, but I can read, and in my professional life, I’ve been working with (historical) legal sources for the past 15 years.
Let’s take a look at what’s in store for the 27% of Covidistan’s residents who elected not to get ‘vaccinated’ so far (as of 16 Dec. 2021, ‘vaccine’ uptake—at least one jab—stood at 73.02% of the country’s total population, which corresponds to 76.74% of the ‘vaxx-able’ population, according to the Health Ministry).
Draft Legislation on ‘Mandatory Vaccination’
(If not mentioned specifically, all emphases are mine.)
§1 Mandatory Vaccination (Impfpflicht)
(1): the vaxx mandate applies to ‘all [natural] persons with a primary residence’ in the country who are 18 years or older.
(2) extends the mandate to all residents between ages 14-17, whereby reference is made to §173 of the Civil Code (§173 (1) ABGB, JGS Nr. 946/1811), which relates to matters of (informed) consent to medical treatment by minors and specifically holds that such ‘consent can only be given by the minor itself’.
Sidenote: I find (2) quite problematic, for that act includes the following wording: ‘In case of doubt of a minor’s decision-making capacity, it is presumed that the minor is as capable of making such a decision as if [they] have reached the age of majority’. A parental’s or legal guardian’s consent is only ‘required if a minor’s faculties to make such a decision is lacking’.
Note that the vaxx mandate applies to everyone who’s 14 years or older; in Covidistan, the voting age for all elections is 16, i.e., 14- and 15yo teenagers cannot vote, but they are deemed decision-capable for decisions on medical treatment and are made subject to the compulsory vaccination.
§2 Terms and Definitions
This clause contains key terms and such, including specifically the four EMA-approved ‘vaccines’ (BioNTech/Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, J&J). The most important sections here are
(5) on the validity of ‘infected’ and ‘recovered’ status (180 days from a PCR test)
(6) the legally mandated time differentials between jabs 1, 2, and 3 (see below §4); and
(7) on the first ‘cut-off date’ (Impfstichtag), which is supposedly 15 March 2022.
§3 Exemptions
(1) are made for pregnant women and natural persons who cannot be jabbed due to excess risks for one’s own life, as well as for individuals who ‘recovered’ from Covid-19, but this exemption is limited to 180 days after a positive PCR test result.
(2) any such exemption may only be valid until the end of the month in which one’s exempt status expires; if a minor turns 18 and hasn’t been jabbed yet, ‘vaccination’ is mandatory from the next month onwards.
(3) all exemptions must be certified by a licences physician, incl. personal data (name, date of birth, sex, and the individual digital identifier assigned by the Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs), data on the exemption-awarding physician (personal data and date), the reason of the exemption, and the end date of the exemption.
(4) the obligation to carry with one the proof of exemption, which is also to be entered into the centrally administered vaccine registry by the exemption-awarding physician.
(5) affords ‘the responsible cabinet minister the authority to decree further particulars and minimum requirements’; all that the Health Minister is obliged to do is to ‘publish the decree [executive order, in US-speak] on the ministry’s website’.
(6) affords the Health Minister the authority to alter, remove, and/or add to any of the above—except section (2)—‘ifdeemed necessary to protect public health’, and to do so ‘either temporarily or in perpetuity’.
Sidenote: here we can see the (family-friendly word) that this draft legislation is. If read carefully (even though it’s not exactly well-hidden), §3 is nothing short than the equivalent of ‘martial law’ for public health reasons.
Now, this is a strong choice of words, but I think it is well justified, as especially seconds (5) and (6) are nothing short but the authorisation for the responsible cabinet-level minister to simply determine on his or her own how to apply the law, which parts are to be applied, and, if he or she deems it necessary, decide upon any alteration whatsoever. Further, there is mention of ‘changes to the legal status of any of the vaccines or alterations pertaining to the state of research’.
If you are more positively inclined towards human nature than I am, then you are of course free to see especially section (6) as the act’s ‘saving grace’, for it provides the health minister the excuse not to enforce the law.
§4 To whom mandatory vaccination against Covid-19 applies
(1) this is another crucial section, for it explicitly spells out what is to be understood by ‘mandatory vaccination’, in particular relating to the number of jabs required to achieve ‘fully vaccinated’ status. Here, the draft legislation is explicit, for it obliges all residents to the first and second jabs (the latter to be taken at the earliest 14 days, and at the latest 42 days, after the first jab) as well as ‘any third or additional jab, to be taken at the earliest 120 days, and at the latest 270 days, after the respective last jab’.
(2) if a PCR-confirmed infection occurs after the first (or second) jab but before the second (or third) jab, residents may defer the second (or third) jab for up to 180 days, but another jab must be taken within the subsequent 90 days, thus bringing the max. period of deferment after laboratory-confirmed infection to 270 days.
(3) if one’s first jab occurred more than 360 days before this act enters into force, a new vaccination series has to commence, beginning with a first jab.
(4) if one received two jabs within 360 days before this act enters in force, a third jab must be taken in accordance with §4 (1).
(5) if an individual received two jabs, and if these two jabs were more than 360 days apart, then the date of the second jab counts as first jab [in accordance with §4 (1)]
(6) recovered individuals who can document their status and who did not get vaccinated yet must get their first jab at the earliest 21 days and at the latest 270 after recovery, and their second jab at the earliest 120 days and at the latest 270 after the first jab. Those who get infected after the first jab but before their second jab, are obliged to obtain another shot, if the time period elapsed between [first jab and infection] exceeds 270 days.
(7) re-affirms the Health Minister’s authority to decree changes of the intervals of the jabs, the vaccines, and the number of compulsory shots, if the overall legal status, the licensing status of the currently available vaccines, and/or the state of research indicates this.
Sidenote: here, too, we are able to observe either the concentration of arbitrary power in the Health Minister or an excuse to single-handedly change another key section of the law. To me, I am unsure as to why to repeat here what has been outlined in almost the same words in §3 (6).
§5 Determination of persons subject to compulsory vaccination
(1) to determine the population’s vaccination status as of the ‘cut-off date’ (Impfstichtag) [see §2 (7)], authorities are empowered to obtain personal data on all residents from the Interior Ministry’s National Population Registry; while this must be done in accordance with all national and EU legislation pertaining to privacy, the below sections pertain to all residents 14 years and older [there are also references to § 7 and 8, on which see below].
Personal data to be shared by the Interior Ministry incl. the individual digital identifier, personal and family names, sex, date of birth, municipality identifier, and the primary residential address.
Personal data shared by ELGA [a government-owned non-profit entity representing all healthcare and social insurance stakeholders], which is responsible for running the Health Ministry’s Central Vaccination Registry, incl. the individual digital identifier, personal and family names, sex, date of birth as well as the dates and brand(s) of Covid-19 vaccine(s), in addition to data on any exemptions that may apply under §3 (3.2-4).
All data is to be shared with the Health Minister.
(2) The Health Minister is empowered, with due consideration of §4 (7) of the [EU’s] General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to cross-reference all the above-mentioned data as of the ‘cut-off date’ and evaluate whether or not all mandatory vaccinations per §1 and 2 of this Act have been obtained; or whether or not all registered individuals can claim an exemption under §3 and 4 of this Act. On this basis, the Health Minister is further authorised to determine an individual’s obligations under §4 (1-6) of this Act. All data is to be deleted immediately upon the cross-referencing.
(3) The Health Minister is obliged to repeat these procedures every three months (on which see §7 (1) and §8 (1), below) under all the requirements listed above. The Health Minister is further obliged to convey these data to state governors [US parlance again, the original is Landeshauptmann] to follow-up on the vaccination mandate. State-of-the-art encryption and data protection measures must be used.
(4) A general obligation for the Health Minister, the Interior Ministry (Population Registry), all other competent local and municipal authorities, state governors, ELGA, and Austrian Embassies (see §7 (3), below), as well as all any physician or authority (see §3 (3-4), above) must implement adequate data protection measures.
This applies in particular to sharing of personal data with third parties, and explicitly forbids the further processing of personal data ‘for any other purpose, if this is not explicitly authorised by federal law’. The Health Minister is obliged to ensure erasure of personal data at the latest two weeks after each cut-off-date and the transmission to subordinate authorities as per §5 (3).
All state and local authorities are obliged to restrict and document data access to individual officials and in accordance with individual duties [job descriptions]. No access shall be granted in excess of the above-specified duties. All administrative and technical precautions are to be undertaken to ensure privacy and to prevent unwarranted access to these data.
All those who compile and share such personal data (ELGA, physicians, etc.) must abide by current legislation and document all access.
(5) and (6) These data and access protocols may be ‘further processed by the Health Minister for reasons pertaining to quality-control’. This section contains a lot of specifics pertaining to unwarranted and/or abuse of access by any party, as well as how to proceed in case of violation of any of the enumerated laws.
Sidenote: another set of problematic aspects, mainly revolving around data sharing and sharing, privacy, and the like. My main concerns are how to enforce compliance with data protection measures (such as deleting any cross-linked data), issues related to encryption and data protection integrity, and the like. In addition, I have grave concerns concerning the ‘quality-control’ clause, which typically means outsourcing data to third (or fourth) parties for assessment and reporting. This is a data protection and privacy breach in-the-making, if past experiences with these issues is any guide.
§6 Written notices (‘reminders’)
(1) On 15 Feb. 2022, the Health Minister has to find out about those whose vaccination status remains unknown and to subsequently remind these of their obligation to get vaccinated pursuant to §5 (2) of this Act. These written notices serve to remind these individuals to obtain the (next) jab until the next ‘cut-off date’ or within the subsequent three months.
(2) This written notice also obliges the Health Minister to inform these individuals about the Covid-19 vaccination program and related information.
Sidenote: given the privacy and data protection-related clauses (pursuant to §5 (2 and 3)) oblige the Health Minister to delete these data every three months, it is highly likely that government officials or third-party stakeholders will keep a running filing system going to ‘facilitate’ these matters—imagine government officials compiling these lists every three month and doing this over and over again: past experiences don’t bode well for the government to adhere to these obligations.
§7 Fees and Penalties
(1) Those who fail to comply with any of the obligations enumerated above (§4 (1 through 7), §5 (3)) are committing an administrative violation and incur a fine of up to 3,600 €. Income and wealth, as well as personal circumstances are to be considered when the fine is levied. A penalty or fee may not be converted into jail time even if payment does not occur.
(2) Compliance with the vaccination mandate or any exemptions thereof may be proved by entering bespoke information into the Central Vaccination Registry, by showing one’s vaccination passport, or a physician’s confirmation of vaccination.
(3) Local administrators (in their function as public health authorities) are obliged to enter all information about vaccination against Covid-19 into the Central Vaccination Registry, if the person is a permanent resident of Austria (§1); if vaccination was obtained abroad; and if it is deemed unreasonable for the individual to have the information registered personally.
If it is impossible to document in writing compliance with these vaccination mandate, Austrian ambassadorial and consular staff are obliged to transmit these data to local (county) administration. If this happens, it is deemed unreasonable to transmit such information in the afore-mentioned sense.
(4) Any administrative proceedings are to be ceased if proof of vaccination is documented.
(5) Any physician who provides any individual with an exemption that does not reflect accurately the state-of-research (§3 (1) is similarly to in violation of the law and shall incur a fine of up to 3,600 €.
Sidenote: there is some leeway for enforcement of fines up to 3,600 €, but there is nothing in this section that clearly, and legally waterproof so, delineates ‘double jeopardy’, i.e., that anyone cannot be fined or judged twice for the same violation of the law. Some Austrian legal experts have stated this to be problematic, but others are inclined to side with the Health Minister’s draft here because if one fails to comply and pays a one-off fine, one would still be in violation of the law.
Furthermore, §3 (5 and 6) and § 4 (7) afford the Health Minister excessive discretionary powers to determine the state-of-research, which—in my opinion—opens all gates of hell when it comes to the potential for abuse by state officials and their enforcers (see below).
§8 Criminal proceedings
(1) County officials are authorised to repeatedly fine any individual who fails to comply with the vaccination requirements on the initial ‘cut-off-day’ and any other such quarterly date. Everyone who fails to comply may be fined up to 600 € (simplified proceedings). Recourse is to be made to §48 and 49 of the Administrative Criminal Code (VStG). A penalty or fee may not be converted into jail time even if payment does not occur.
(2) The Health Minister is authorised to decree uniform fines and define any group(s) of individuals who may qualify for a lower fee than the one outlined in section (1).
Sidenote: here, again, we see the potential for vast, unaccountable abuse, as the Health Minister is again authorised to single-handedly change these important sections of the Act. Unresolved in all of these instances, however, remains the notion of actual enforcement if one fails to comply and refuses to pay.
§9 Earmarking
This section relates that all fees and penalties pursuant to § 7 and 8 will accrue to the county or municipal public healthcare provider. If there are more than one such institution, all fees and penalties will be routed through a ‘central healthcare provider’ [e.g., states run their own hospitals, hence the ‘central healthcare provider’ is the state-level healthcare institution]; and if there is no such supra-ordinate institution, all fees and penalties will accrue to specialised institutions (e.g., pulmonary clinics) or, failing that, to regular hospitals. Furthermore, if there is more than any such healthcare provider, all fees and penalties may be distributed in equal parts among all these healthcare providers. If locally generated fees and penalties cannot be distributed to local healthcare providers, all these fees and penalties will accrue to poor relief [Sozialhilfe], but if there is a supra-ordinate poor relief association [administration], all fees and penalties will accrue to the latter.
Sidenote: this reads as much like an inverse pyramid as it is, in addition to a hefty dose of virtue-signalling—for all the fees and penalties the (anti-social) protesters and ‘vaxx hesitant’ will bring upon themselves shall be given to worthy causes. Thus, all the state does is take from ‘the unvaccinated’ to give to others. In other words, this is a form of ‘taxation’, widely understood, of one part of the population to support that part of the population who is blindly following the diktats of government officials. As such, it is arbitrary and, frankly, tyrannical, but the virtue-signalling aspect is to be understood, as far as I’m concerned, as a primary line of defence against precisely this kind of counter-argument.
You see, Austrian law provides that access to healthcare is one thing, but the organisation of it matters: there is one unified national health insurance provider (it’s another government-owned entity) that has nine state branches. Funding, however, flows from the federal gov’t to the states that then appropriate funding (it works quite differently from, say, the US, where states have their own taxes and funding; in Austria, the federal gov’t forks over money to the states whose chieftains then get to distribute it without getting badmouthed for high taxes, which is a federal issue). This is why I stated that this reads like a new tax scheme, for fees and penalties accrue locally and they are supposedly distributed locally as well, but the draft law is formulated in a way that obscures the fact that the fees and penalties will ultimately accrue to the state healthcare providers, hence this means local fees are converted into another funding stream for the (naturally deficient before Covid) healthcare providers; see below for further particulars.
§10 On Payment and organisation of the vaccination campaign
(1) the vaccination campaign is to be conducted by the federal states, in particular through the executive branch (Landeshauptmann, or governor), but all costs, both logistical and for the vaccines, as well as all costs deriving from medical treatment pursuant to §3 (1) and (2), as well as honorariums for physicians are to be paid by the health insurance providers.
(2) any individual claiming an exemption from the vaccination mandate pursuant to §3 (1) is obliged topay a fee to any licensed medical practitioner; the precise amount for these exemption certificates shall be decreed by the Health Minister. It shall be illegal to pay these fees via regular health insurance providers. If an individual visited multiple licensed medical practitioners [to obtain such exemption], health insurance providers are entitled to a refund of these fees from the exemption-claiming individual, provided their total amount exceeded the amount any physician can claim [from the health insurance provider] in comparable cases.
(3) All employers are obliged to afford paid leave, incl. travel to and from, vaccination providers.
Sidenote: another insidious title, which reveals, in a bit more detail, the funding streams explained above. The federal gov’t obliges state executives to organise these vaccination drives and ‘bribes’ (my word) them by offering federal payment. So far, so obvious. The second part of (1), however, also reveals the mechanism and payment streams to co-opt GPs and other medical practitioners: according to information such a Vienna-based GP/family doctor shared with me, physicians may claim 85 € (as of 21 Dec. 2021, that would be some $96) per jab.
If you’re wondering about the costs—based on a hypothetical back-of-the-envelope calculation—according to the Health Ministry’s ‘Covid Dashboard’, 15,867,000 jabs have been provided as of 19 Dec. 2021; that number alone suggests that claims in Austria alone amount to a number in excess of 1.3 billion € (1,348,695,000 €). Of course, this is a fictitious amount, but it illustrates the theoretical payments by the gov’t on top everything else (i.e., costs of testing, logistics, administrative overhead, etc.).
Apart from the recklessness of public spending, let’s not forget another insidious power grab by the Health Minister who is to be empowered to decree the costs per medical exemption to be borne by the still-hesitant individual. In other words, if § 2, 3, and 4 afford that cabinet secretary to define what science is, how many jabs to take, and when to get them, §10 (2) further affords the Health Minister discretion as to the amount any individual exemption may costs, in addition to considerable leeway when it comes to blocking insured individuals from seeking reimbursements for these fees.
This is beyond anything imaginable, for the Health Minister could impose staggeringly high fees of, say, 10,000 € per exemption certificate, for which the exemption-providing physician would be entitled to reimbursement for services rendered from both the exemption-seeking individual and he or she could also claim a fee for services rendered from the health insurance provider—talk about ‘double jeopardy’.
§11 Parliamentary consent requirements
This is a very brief title, it contains but one sentence, and it spills the beans (the following is a direct quote): ‘Decrees [Verordnungen, i.e., executive orders] pursuant to §3 (6) and §4 (7) of this Federal Act need consent of the Legislative Select Committee [Hauptausschuss] of the National Council [Nationalrat, the lower chamber of the Austrian parliament].’
Sidenote: given the extraordinary executive powers claimed by the Health Minister, all the government minister must obtain is the consent of the Legislative Select Committee of parliament. While this sounds nice and like oversight, this select committee requirement—like virtually everything else in Austrian politics—is window dressing. No such committee vote has ever gone against government proposals, however craven, injurious, and/or insulting they may be, to say nothing of anti-democratic impulses, such as the ‘lockdown for the unvaccinated’, which, technically, may only be imposed for a ten-day period, hence it must be extended every ten days by a vote of—the Legislative Select Committee. Drawn from all MPs, it’s obvious that the government has a majority, hence there is no real question whether or not anything like a public debate followed by a vote (of conscience) will ever take place. (And if you’re in doubt about this, the most recent extension of the house arrest for the unvaccinated was approved by the very same Legislative Select Committee just the other day, and the gov’t coalition could further count on the votes of the Social Democratic committee members, as reported by state media.)
§12 Concluding clauses
(1) This Act shall enter into force the day after publication in the federal register, and it shall expire on 31 January 2024.
(2) State governors (Landeshauptmann), i.e., the state executive branch, are authorised, by means of decreeing so, to obtain jurisdiction over proceedings on fees and penalties provided doing so would streamline and expedited such procedures.
(3) All provisions contained in this Act shall be executed by the Health Minister, with the exception of §5 (1) and §10 (3), for which responsibility falls onto the Interior Minister and Labour Minister, respectively.
(4) All personal data shall follow gender indications of the individual concerned.
(5) It is permissible to publish decrees based on this Act before it enters into force, but any such decree must not be enforced before this Act enters into force.
Sidenote: there’s at least an expiration date, which is of course subject to potential (doh) change, I daresay.
Do note that (2) affords additional authority on the executive branches of Austria’s nine federal states, and all they need to do is discuss issues of ‘simplification’ and suchlike with the Health Minister. In case you’re still wondering what this piece of legislation is about, this section further reinforces the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of this emergency powers act: once parliament voted on this, the executive branch on both federal and state level has tremendous, if not outright unchecked, power to alter virtually all the parameters contained therein.
As an aside, if you thought a Covid-related measure may not further the LGBTQ++ agenda, take a look at section (4): I don’t have any problems with self-identification of gender whatsoever, but I do wonder if that’s actually a problem that warrants particular attention here. (See the below picture of a very sympathetic profile of Health Minister Mückstein, which appeared in Der Standard in late November 2021.)
Finally, note that section (5) opens a veritable Pandora’s Box of abuse, as it allows the Health Minister to float future decrees before the law enters into force, hence directly contradicting key clauses of the Act, i.e., those that explicitly forbid the application of coercive measures (§1 (3)).
My take on this piece of garbage legislation
In my estimation, this draft legislation is a piece of garbage that should be thrown out by parliament, which should further throw out the government, in particular the ‘author’ of this piece, Health Minister Mückstein.
If you read the key titles and sections carefully, one can see that this is not a public health measure. It is, frankly, a piece of Enabling Legislation (Ermächtigungsgesetz) that is both unwarranted and irresponsible.
Key sections of the Act pertain to any number of serious, constitutional issues, such as
the issue of foreigners and Austrians living abroad who maintain a secondary residence in Austria (§1);
issues pertaining to both the legal rights of minors vs. adults (§1 (2)), in particular relating to voting rights and the right to informed consent;
the introduction of regular affirmations of loyalty to the government by means of introduction of quarterly vaccination-affirmation rituals (§2);
the cross-departmental sharing of personal data and medical records (§3 and 5), including the obligation to ‘remind’ unvaccinated repeatedly (§6);
the codification of the number of jabs, the time differentials between them, and the vaccines (§4);
the empowerment, or authorisation, of a single government minister (the Health Minister) to determine which vaccines, how many jabs, and on what grounds these may be decreed (§ 4 and 5);
the option of repeat fines of up to 3,600 € for those who fail to get vaccinated, even though there’s one caveat (as in the wording that holds that no one can be physically forced to either pay or get vaccinated), which opens the door to arbitrary enforcement (§ 7 and 8);
the virtue-signalling earmarking of all fees and penalties that, to me, look like a special head, or poll, tax levied on an arbitrary group of individuals (§ 9);
the gaslighting with respect to accounting and costs, which are borne by the federal government and health insurance providers but must be enforced by state and local authorities (§10);
the fake accountability of having a select committee ‘vote’ on any Health Ministerial decree (§11);
and the reaffirmation of executive powers that shall accrue to government ministers and state governors (§12).
In short: this is an abomination and in a sane world, any such crap would never see the light of day. In the clown world masquerading as ‘pandemic response’ in Covidistan, this Act will be voted on in late January and enter into force on 1 February 2022. Yes, there will be some changes and amendments to certain passages here and there, but the main gist will remain.
Afterthoughts: Reminiscences of a Dark Past
Make no mistake, though, this is a power grab by the Health Minister who will obtain tyrannical powers that exceeds anything seen in Central Europe since 1945.
This is an extraordinary claim, I know, and I don’t make it lightly. Yet, I am quite convinced that draft legislation affords such an incredible amount of executive authority to a single government minister (the Health Minister), that this categorisation is valid and, in fact, warranted.
The key sections are §3 (5 and 6) and §4 (7) that authorise the Health Minister the singular authority to decree any changes to the vaccines to be used, the number of jabs, and to the assessment of the ‘scientific basis’ for these measures. Then there are §8 (2) that affords the Health Minister to decree the amount of fees as he or she sees fit, as well as §10 (2) that empowers health insurance providers to similarly alter payment amounts and reimbursement schemes for any of these administrative measures. Finally, §12 (2 and 3) reaffirm the authority claimed by federal (Health Minister) and state executives (governors) to ‘enforce’ all and any part of the Act.
How, then, do these clauses compare, say, with the Enabling Act of 1933 (hence EA), which legally cemented into place Hitler’s dictatorship in Germany?
Well, for starters, the 1933 law was much shorter and more comprehensive, for it stressed (EA §1) that ‘laws of the Reich may also be enacted by the government’. The vaxx mandate explicitly affords the authority to issue decrees in these manners, i.e., it there is no need to actually bother the entirety of parliament with any of them, for as §11 clearly holds, all that is needed is the assent of the Legislative Select Committee (incidentally, §11 is also just a single sentence, i.e., very much in line with the paucity of details and specifics in the 1933 act).
EA §2 similarly grants broad and unchecked powers to the government, holding that ‘laws enacted by the government of the Reich may deviate from the constitution as long as they do not affect the institutions of the Reichstag and the Reichsrat’. Here, I shall point the reader to sections §3 (5 and 6) and §4 (7) of the draft legislation, which afford a single government minister the authority to decree any changes to the vaccines to be used, the number of jabs, and to the assessment of the ‘scientific basis’ for these measures.
Finally, the Austrian draft legislation, while providing a sunset clause (31 Jan. 2024) in §12 (1), differs significantly from EA §5, which specifically holds that ‘it expires furthermore if the present Reich government is replaced by another’. In this context, I would argue, consistent with my hypothesis of a ‘technocratic’ caretaker government taking over early next year, that §12 (1) was written in that way for precisely this reason, i.e., to forestall any changes to the enabling legislation masquerading as a public health measure.
While my contacts in Covidistan suggest that police are actually ordered to do nothing against the protesters (as long as property damage and danger to life is averted by them), it is also indicative of widespread sentiments among police: none of them will actually opt for getting beaten up ‘protecting’ any of the putschists.
Hence, if the first paragraph in this section is a ‘thesis’, the second is the ‘antithesis’, so let’s briefly contemplate a ‘synthesis’: in my estimation, with the recently-announced militarisation of Covid policies—note that the federal state of Salzburg just announced it is placing overall crisis coordination into the hands of a military officer—once this Enabling Act is enshrined into law, we will see the emergence of a ‘unity government’ to forestall any elections before the current parliamentary term expires in autumn 2024.
You are very much welcome, indeed invited, to let me know if, and how far, my reading is off in the comments section below.
The final words in this overly long posting go to Carl Schmitt who stated, about a century ago, the following
Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.
In Covidistan’s case, this sovereign will soon be the Health Minister.
If you determine my reading is accurate, you may wish to join me and weep for the future of humanity, in particular our children who may perhaps learn about freedoms and liberties from history books or sentimental ramblings of their (grand-) parents.
Oh, my homeland, so lovely and so lost! Oh memory, so dear and so dead!
Taken from Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece Nabucco, esp. the ‘Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves’ (2011, courtesy of Youtube).
[i.e., in mid-Dec. 2022] ?
The easier action is to lower the power of the government to pass laws that benefit the fascists.