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Subject: Kohl's 'Emergency' Suggestion Raises Questions, Draws Criticism<By Marc
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 92 04:45:22 EST
Message-ID: <46.1992Nov3.044522@AmeriCast.com>

Kohl's 'Emergency' Suggestion Raises Questions, Draws
Criticism<By Marc Fisher<Washington Post Foreign Service=

BERLIN, Nov. 2 - Chancellor Helmut Kohl's suggestion that he may
declare a national state of emergency to combat the record influx
of refugees into Germany has left Kohl standing virtually alone
in a legal vacuum, but may yet have the political impact he
desires.  Constitutional experts of all political stripes today
dismissed the notion that Kohl could construe the country's
asylum controversy as the kind of emergency that would allow him
to assume special constitutional powers.  Reacting with unusual
vehemence to the possibility of Kohl's taking what one chancel-
lery aide called "extra-constitutional" measures, the opposition
Social Democratic Party today called the idea "a blunt attack on
our basic order." "What is happening here endangers the state,"
it said.

Social Democratic manager Karlheinz Blessing said the party would
do everything possible to resist an attack "reminiscent of the
emergency laws at the beginning of the 1930s."

Even using the term "emergency" about the refugee situation, So-
cial Democratic parliamentary leader Hans-Ulrich Klose said, "is
improper, even dangerous because it whips up scapegoat arguments
against foreigners."

Kohl aides said that if the Social Democrats continue to resist a
constitutional change limiting Germany's present guarantee of
political asylum, the chancellor might try to restrict asylum by
legislation rather than by constitutional amendment. Passage of a
law would require only a majority vote of parliament, which Kohl
could easily muster, rather than the two-thirds vote needed for
an amendment, which the Social Democrats could block.

Legal experts said any attempt to change the asylum rules by
legislation would be rejected by Germany's highest court. But
that might suit Kohl's political motives, said Martin Kiele, a
constitutional expert at Cologne University. In an interview, he
said that although Kohl has no legal grounds for trying to accom-
plish by law what must be done by amendment, "Kohl could take the
court's rejection and then go to the people and say that he tried
to solve this crisis and the Social Democrats wrecked it."

The opposition party is to hold a special convention later this
month to reconsider its position on asylum and immigration. Party
leaders want to drop support of an absolute asylum guarantee, but
many party members see that as a violation of tradition and his-
tory.

Kohl's spokesman, Dieter Vogel, said the chancellor has no inten-
tion of acting illegally and means emergency in a political rath-
er than legal sense. "It is only a question of what can be done
to ease and improve the situation if the SPD does not agree to an
amendment," Vogel said at a news conference.

But a constitutional law expert in Kohl's own Christian Democrat-
ic Party, parliament member Rupert Scholz, said that while the
strain on government budgets caused by supporting thousands of
asylum seekers may be severe, it is not an emergency. "The asylum
seekers are not invaders," he told Der Spiegel magazine.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine, a daily newspaper often sympathetic
with Kohl, called the state-of-emergency idea a "trial balloon"
designed to push the Social Democrats into agreeing to the
chancellor's constitutional change and to send the populace a
message that Kohl understands the depths of public rage over the
refugee influx.

The flow of refugees into Germany, mostly from Romania, Turkey
and former Yugoslav republics, is expected to reach 500,000 this
year, up from 256,000 last year and 120,000 in 1990. Germany
guarantees asylum in an effort to atone for its abuses during the
Nazi years.

More than 1,500 attacks on foreigners have occurred this year,
most of them in the 11 weeks since right-wing extremists fire-
bombed a building housing Gypsies and Vietnamese in the eastern
city of Rostock.

With public support for right-wing radicals growing in opinion
polls, Kohl aides have said the chancellor is anxious to move his
party to the right to preempt extremists from becoming an elec-
toral threat.

But the very mention of a state of emergency has alarmed many
Germans, and news reports here were teeming with debate over the
meanings of legal terms and constitutional clauses.

Germany's constitution gives the government special powers if the
basic democratic order is endangered. It also allows the govern-
ment to shortcut the usual means of passing laws if the parlia-
ment is stalemated over an urgent matter. But that mechanism may
be used only after the chancellor calls a vote of confidence in
his rule, a move Kohl is unlikely to make.  Legal expert Kiele
said that despite the continuing arrival of refugees, Germany
cannot be said to face a domestic emergency. "None of the re-
quirements for a legal state of emergency exist," he said.

Under the constitution, the chancellor may declare two kinds of
emergency - either to strengthen the military in a defense
crisis, or to boost police powers in times of civil unrest or na-
tural disaster. Neither power has ever been used.

Special correspondent Steve Vogel contributed to this report from
Bonn.<02:37 11-03C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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