General information on legal regulations and the AZK rules can be found at the end of the presentation.
So after the valuable presentation by Dr. Broudy from Japan, we now come to a high-quality speaker from Austria.
He holds a doctorate in law and deals with the central problem of how to deal with unjust,
i.e. unlawful, legal norms and their consequences.
But you know, for ordinary citizens like me or us, there can't really be such a thing as unjust legal norms.
That would be like a bad Santa Claus for us.
And that's why we don't even entertain the idea that such injustice could even violate our dignity and personality.
But this is precisely a general error!
And Dr. Michael Brunner will now address this dangerous error with his six theses and show
ways out of this all too unrecognized dilemma.
But before we welcome him to the stadium, let's take a quick look at his CV.
Dr. Michael Brunner received his doctorate in law in 1990 and worked as a lawyer in Austria for 31 years.
He has been an active critic of coronavirus measures since March 2020, lodging complaints against coronavirus
measures with the Constitutional Court, speaking at demonstrations, publishing videos and so on.
And now an overview of his political career:
October 2020:
Foundation of "Lawyers for Fundamental Rights - Lawyers for Enlightenment" in Vienna
February 2021:
Founding of the political party "MFG - Menschen Freiheit Grundrechte"
From fall 2021: His party enters the Upper Austrian state parliament;
Electoral successes in local council elections in Upper Austria, Lower Austria and Tyrol
Fall 2022:
MFG candidate in the federal presidential election in the fall.
He positioned himself as an opponent of the political establishment.
July 2023:
Founding member of the "International Attorneys of Law", an international association
that deals with legislation around the world.
November 2023:
Emeritus status as an active lawyer.
From December 2023, various lecturing activities and continued legal activities in an advisory capacity, etc.
Dr. Brunner speaks today about "Human dignity is the measure of right - everything else is wrong"
I would like to extend a warm welcome to you all and I would especially like to thank you for allowing me to make my
contribution today on this very important topic, on the legal qualification of unjust laws and their consequences.
"Human dignity is the measure of justice.
Human dignity must be the measure of justice, otherwise it is injustice."
Law and justice are not synonymous terms.
Law does not have to be justice.
Justice does not have to be right.
But justice without justice is injustice.
Justice is always justice.
What is justice in a legal sense?
Justice is an evaluation of knowledge.
Treating equal things equally, treating unequal things unequally.
Or to act in such a way that the actions of your maxim could be elevated to the law of the world, as Immanuel Kant says.
Or simply a peace order - because there can be no peace without justice; no peace without a balance of interests.
If law were justice and there were no unjust laws, then my essay, my presentation, would by and large be over.
But reality teaches us something different.
It teaches us that the ideal of justice has not been realized.
Neither in the legal area nor in the political area.
Unlawful, unjust laws are passed by the legislature.
They are applied by the executive and they are enforced by the judiciary.
They are all under obligation to comply.
Citizens are obliged to comply with unjust laws.
The central question that I have been grappling with for many months - I can only reproduce part of my work here - is the
legal qualification of unjust legal norms and their consequences.
For me, the starting point for determining whether law is just or unjust is human dignity.
It is the highest principle of law in terms of natural and positive law .
It is the central norm of civilized legal systems that are anchored both in simple law and in constitutional law .
In a democratic system based on the rule of law, all justice comes from the people.
Freedom and equality are the pillars of democracy.
If the people have delegated their power to political parties to represent them, the people nevertheless remain
the sovereign to whom the representatives are responsible.
Even if, in the practice of representative democracy, the power of political parties is increasingly extending to all
forms of society and civil structures, democracy only exists if it corresponds to the will of the people.
Law against the people or laws against the law are never law and they are not based on the will of the people.
The people, the sovereign, has not delegated the law to representatives so that these representatives
make law for their own sake or law against the people.
Anyone who disregards the law and justice as a representative must take responsibility and be held accountable!
The practice in Austria and also in other countries according to the Constitutional Court in Austria and also according to the
Austrian legal situation that even unconstitutional laws are to be applied until they are repealed - and then at
most within a repair period of up to 18 months - means that injustice becomes law, which I firmly reject.
When the separation of powers no longer functions, when governments can effectively make laws themselves on the basis of
their parliamentary majorities, when they are no longer subject to parliamentary control, when governments fill administrative
and judicial positions politically, when organizations and institutions close to the state are oligarchized , when freedom
of opinion, freedom of science and freedom of the press are censored, when dissenters are slandered, ridiculed
and even persecuted, when media diversity is destroyed - then we are far removed from any rule of law.
At the latest with the publication of the Robert Koch Institute files, it became public even for the mainstream that
there had never been an evidence base for all corona measures.
It was scaled up via political call.
The 2020 to 2023 coronavirus crisis was the biggest legal and medical scandal worldwide since 1945!
In order to prevent the effectiveness of such political appeals in the future, all injustice must be
denied the validity of legal norms from the outset!
Anyone who nevertheless participates in this must be held accountable!
Human dignity - I am quoting Thomas Aquinas here:
"Every law that elevates the human personality is just.
Any law that degrades human personality is unjust."
Section 16 of the Austrian General Civil Code (Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch) as the central norm of the original
right of personality states : Every human being has innate rights that are already evident through
reason and is therefore to be regarded as a person.
This postulates the primal right of personality as a legal principle, the central norm of civilized legal systems.
Rights are innate to human beings.
This means that they are not acquired or awarded, and certainly not by governments or representatives.
They do not have to be granted or acquired first.
They are intrinsic to humanity, to being human.
This is also stipulated in Article 1 of the German Basic Law:
Human dignity is inviolable.
It is the duty of all state authorities to respect and protect them.
The following fundamental rights bind legislation, executive power and jurisdiction as directly applicable law.
And I would like to add that they also bind the media.
In addition to Article 1 of the Basic Law, Article 79 establishes the guarantee of existence in perpetuity.
These fundamental rights, the inviolability of human dignity, cannot be altered by an amendment to the constitution.
It is eternal.
As a fundamental ethical principle, human dignity is timeless and stands above any form of government.
Because every human life is of equal value and has the right to exist freely.
"Man as an end in himself must never be a means to an end", according to Immanuel Kant.
According to the established case law of the German Federal Constitutional Court, human dignity is the
highest value decision of the Basic Law and the constitutional principle of the German legal system.
Human dignity is the highest constitutional value and is non-negotiable.
In the same sense, Article 7 of the Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation states that
human dignity must be respected and protected.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 10.12.1948:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, are endowed with reason and conscience and
should treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
The Declaration of Independence of the United States, published on July 4, 1776, proclaims: All men are created equal.
All people have certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The unconditional, indispensable and unlimited respect for human dignity is the foundation of the
rule of law and democracy, which cannot be negotiated.
They form the absolute red line that must never be crossed.
Anyone who violates human dignity violates the democratic constitutional state, the equality of the law,
without which there can be no justice - no law, no state that would not become a band of robbers.
St. Augustine of Hippo: "Take away the law - what is a state but a great band of robbers?"
Starting from the highest basic principle of the basic material norm, as I call it as a lawyer - the dignity of the
human being - I come to a thesis proposal of six theses.
But first, a brief statement by Martin Luther King.
"I would be the first to plead for compliance with fair laws.
One has not only the legal but also the moral responsibility to obey just laws.
Conversely, people have a moral responsibility to disregard unjust laws.
I agree with St. Augustine that an unjust law is not a law."
Lex iniusta non est lex, says the highest Latin maxim.
And now to the six theses:
Thesis 1: The basic norm of the legal system, from which all law emanates, is human dignity as the primal right of personality.
It is neither hypothesis nor fiction.
2nd thesis: The highest-ranking right is human dignity as the primal right of personality.
These are his inherent rights, fundamental rights and freedoms.
They form the constituent principles of the legal system.
3rd thesis: Legal norms that violate the dignity of man, his innate rights, are absolutely null and void.
They are not standardized.
I thus represent a position of the prevailing doctrine, the doctrine of the so-called nullity dogma , more on this later.
4th thesis: Legal norms that violate the fundamental rights and freedoms of human beings are absolutely null and void.
They are not standardized.
Proposition 5: Legal norms that violate higher-ranking legal norms are absolutely null and void.
They are not standardized.
6th proposition: Higher-ranking law overrides lower-ranking law with the effect of its absolute nullity.
Lower-ranking law cannot break higher-ranking law.
I can justify these theses, which I base on the dignity of the human being, both in terms of positive law, based
on the legal situation, and in terms of legal philosophy.
One of the most important legal scholars of the 20th century was Gustav Radbruch.
He was an SPD politician and twice Reich Minister of Justice in the Weimar Republic.
He lived from 1878 to 1949.
"A must may be based on power, but never an ought and a valid one."
It draws the line between incorrect law that is perhaps not appropriate, could be
structured differently or is simply incorrect.
Simply incorrect to unjust law that has reached a certain level of injustice.
He justifies this and it ultimately leads to Radbruch's famous formula.
I quote: "The conflict between justice and legal certainty should be resolved in such a way that positive law,
secured by statute and power, takes precedence even if it is unjust and inexpedient in content.
Unless the contradiction between positive law and justice reaches such an intolerable level that the
law, as incorrect law, has to give way to justice.
It is impossible to draw a sharper line between cases of legal injustice and laws that are
nevertheless valid despite their incorrect content."
Another demarcation, he writes, can, however, be made with all sharpness.
And here is the core sentence: "Where justice is not even striven for, where equality, which is the core of justice, has been
deliberately denied in the establishment of positive law, the law is not only incorrect
law, but rather lacks the nature of law at all.
For law, including positive law, cannot be defined in any other way than as an order and
statute that is intended to serve justice."
Law must serve justice, otherwise it is injustice.
And he goes on to say: "Where justice is not even striven for, the decrees thus created
can only be decrees of power, never of law.
So the law that denies human rights to certain people is not a rule of law."
Radbruch's formula then found its way into the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court in the
so-called Wall Shooter Trials after the collapse of the GDR.
Even a law or an order that ordered a Wall sniper to shoot if someone wanted to leave the GDR is wrong and must be punished.
And here we come to the next essential provision, Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights:
No punishment without law:
Paragraph 1 states that there must be a law for every punishment of an offense. No greater penalty may be imposed than the
penalty that is threatened at the time the offense is committed.
However, there is one very significant exception to this, namely in paragraph 2:
Nothing in this Article shall prevent the conviction or punishment of any person guilty of an act or omission which,
at the time when it was committed, was criminal according to the principles of law generally recognized by civilized nations.
Thus, the International Criminal Court, in its Article 38 of the ICJ Statute, also applies the
general principles of law recognized by civilized states.
The generally recognized legal principles, which are superior to the law, have found their way
into positive law and are therefore legally binding.
The same applies to the European Union:
General principles of law are part of the primary law of the European Union.
This includes respect for fundamental rights, equal treatment and proportionality.
In order to understand the hierarchy of norms, I would like to briefly explain the hierarchy of the legal system.
The tiered structure of the legal system as a hierarchy of norms means that every lower-ranking
norm must correspond to the higher-ranking norm.
It must be generated by the higher-ranking standard, otherwise it is unlawful.
In Austria, we have organized the stages of the legal system as follows.
However, this also applies to other legal systems and to countries within the European Union.
Level 1: The highest level is the fundamental principles of the Federal Constitution.
These are the democratic, republican, liberal, federalist and constitutional principles.
Stage 2: Primary Union law, i.e. the Treaties of the Union. And very importantly - the Charter of
Fundamental Rights of the European Union as primary law and again the general principles of law.
Level 3: Secondary EU law, which includes the law adopted by the EU institutions, in particular regulations and directives.
Stage 4: Federal constitutional laws and state constitutional laws of the individual state.
5th stage: Federal laws and state laws as simple laws that must be in accordance with the constitutional laws.
Level 6: Regulations - these are general legal provisions issued by administrative
authorities that can only be issued on the basis of laws.
Stage 7: And then individual case decisions: Judgment, order and decision.
If, as I said, a legal norm contradicts this tiered structure of the statutory instrument, then - in my legal
understanding and according to the doctrine of nullity - it is absolutely null and void.
This would mean that no obligation to comply is triggered.
Here we come to nullity: Lex iniusta non est lex.
The unjust law is not a law, as a Latin maxim.
The legal constitution of the dogma of nullity, the higher law derogates - i.e. abrogates - the lower
law, which is absolutely and irremediably null and void.
In this sense, no separate contestation is required.
A so-called "eo ipso effect" occurs.
In contrast, the doctrine of error calculation, which is common in Austria and is also enshrined in law:
Despite being unlawful, such norms remain in force and binding until they are repealed by an authorized state institution.
This is incompatible with a democratic and constitutional understanding and with the logical-systematic structure of
the legal system as a tiered structure of the legal system.
In Austrian private law, on the other hand, Section 879 (1) states: A contract that violates a
statutory prohibition or offends common decency is void.
So in private law there is no need for a challenge, but in public law there is.
And the Constitutional Court in Austria even has the option of leaving this unlawful law in force for up to 18 months (!).
For me, this is not compatible with the principles of the rule of law, but is only based on the highly questionable
doctrine of error calculation or a certain legal certainty.
The law itself gives those subject to the norm the right to help themselves.
Most common, best known is self-defense:
"When injustice becomes right, resistance becomes a duty." Bertolt Brecht
Section 3 of the Austrian Criminal Code regulates self-defense:
A person does not act unlawfully if they only use the defense that is necessary to ward off a present or imminent unlawful
attack - an important unlawful attack - on the life, health, physical integrity, sexual integrity and self-determination,
freedom or property of themselves or another person.
The requirements for self-defense, which must be cumulative, are therefore the necessary defense, the present or
imminent attack, the unlawfulness of the attack and the attack on the goods capable of self-defense.
An attack that is justified by substantive law, i.e. a law or regulation - be it by an encroaching state - has no
right of self-defense because the attack is not unlawful.
The standard is still in force, even if it is later overturned by the court as unlawful.
But if I take the view, as I do - doctrine of nullity dogma, systematic observance of the hierarchical structure of the legal
system - that such norms are absolutely null and void, then the attack by an encroaching state is unlawful
and then an act of self-defense would be permissible.
Another very common self-help right: the state of emergency.
I would like to introduce this with a very apt quote - especially for our time - from Ludwig von Mises:
"There is no greater threat to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt or vile people."</i
The excusable state of emergency in Austrian law is regulated in Section 10 (1) of the Criminal Code.
It is regulated more similarly in other legal systems.
"Anyone who commits an act punishable by law in order to avert an imminent, significant disadvantage to themselves or another is
excused if the damage threatened by the act is not disproportionately more serious - a proportionality test must
therefore be applied - and no other behavior could be expected from a person associated with the legally protected values."
- i.e. unreasonableness of other behavior and proportionality.
Then there is also the supra-legal state of emergency.
It states: The act of defense in a state of emergency is not unlawful if the legal interest to be saved is
of a higher value than the one that has been damaged.
I would like to refer here to current case law, particularly in Germany:
The issuing of false medical certificates by doctors in the context of Covid-19 mask exemption certificates and Covid-19
vaccination certificates must be correctly assessed as an act of necessity, even assuming that
such corona laws were not illegal from the outset.
For me, they are not only excused, they are also justified.
Because people's health and lives are more important than the legal interest in the reliability of medical certificates.
It is the primary task of a doctor: Primum non nocere, first not to harm - secundum cavere, to protect,
to be careful - tertium sanare, ultimately to heal.
Therefore, the primary assumption is not only of an act of necessity as I understand it, but also of the absolute nullity
of such unlawful norms that cannot acquire the force of law.
I am of the opinion that courts should no longer be allowed to apply such standards to the detriment of accused doctors.
I initially said that anyone who acts unlawfully, who applies unlawful laws when they are
absolutely null and void, must be held accountable.
Attributability: Who is to be attributed, who is responsible and to what extent is he liable?
A word from Hannah Arendt:
"No one has the right to use their obedience as a pretext to justify their actions.
Obeying is not a justification for acting."
We are self-determined, that is what human dignity demands.
If a norm that is unlawful in the hierarchy of norms is absolutely null and void, then it is not part of the legal system.
Therefore, it does not have to be followed and is not to be applied by the administration or the courts.
If it is nevertheless applied, this means acting without a legal basis - thus primarily a violation of the principle
of legality - and is to be attributed to the state authority whose organs attributable to it have acted.
For me, however, this not only establishes the responsibility of the state - which we ourselves ultimately are - but also the
responsibility of the acting bodies according to their capacity for insight and their culpability - especially
for the upper and highest administrative bodies, especially for governments and legislation.
What applies to individual citizens as norm addressees must apply all the more to the state, its powers and
governments and ultimately also to these acting bodies.
No one can free themselves from guilt and liability through ignorance of the law.
Ignorance is no defense against the law.
This applies not only to citizens, but to all civil servants, judges and state bodies.
For the demarcation of responsibility, I refer analogously to § 9 of the Austrian Criminal
Code, the so-called paragraph of legal error,
Para. 1: Anyone who does not recognize the wrongfulness of the act due to an error of law does not
act culpably if he cannot be blamed for the error.
It will certainly be difficult, or in many cases impossible, to reproach simple bodies at district level if they do not interpret
fundamental rights in the way a constitutional lawyer would.
Paragraph 2: The error of law is to be reproached if the wrong was easily recognizable for the perpetrator as for anyone else.
When children, pupils, had to wear masks in classrooms for months due to non-evidence-based corona measures.
If these children and pupils even had to wear masks at times in PE lessons - which is harmful to their health
and diametrically opposed to the welfare of children - then I can easily see the injustice.
And the second sentence: Or if the offender has not acquainted himself with the relevant regulations, although
he would have been obliged to do so according to his profession, employment or other circumstances.
I expect every civil servant to deal with the relevant fundamental rights norms, especially when it
comes to the application of intrusive laws, and to come to a decision here, at best to remonstrate .
Paragraph 3: If the error is to be reproached, then if the offender acts intentionally, the penalty provided for the
intentional act shall be applied; if he acts negligently, the penalty provided for the negligent act shall be applied.
The state itself will virtually never be able to invoke legal error as a reason for excluding its responsibility and liability.
Because he is and must be sufficiently familiar with the legal norms that he himself has created.
Rather, it is about the persons acting on behalf of the state who can be expected to have
expertise in their function and areas of activity.
Attributability, responsibility and liability - as is a matter of course in private law at the horizontal level
between private individuals - must also apply without restriction in public law at the vertical level.
This is the only way to create a system of comprehensive protection of fundamental rights based on the
individual's right to self-determination through the accountability of all actors involved.
Those who cannot be held responsible will not feel responsible.
But he who has recognized the right of his responsibility will meet the duty of his responsibility.
I will now conclude with a demand, a fundamental right - which in itself should be self-evident, in my legal understanding - but
which should be included in the catalog of fundamental rights.
Politics and jurisprudence are particularly called upon to do this.
Precondition of the right:
Man is not made for the law, but the law must be made for man.
Man is not the servant of the state.
Man is the inventor of the state and the state must serve the inventor and never the other way round.
In conclusion, I call for the old fundamental right to be reformulated:
Legal norms that violate the dignity of human beings, their inherent rights, fundamental rights and freedoms
have no normative force and are absolutely null and void.
No one is obliged to follow them and no one is entitled to oblige others to do so.
This is how we will prevent a second corona for all time!
Thank you for your attention.
Fantastic! Dr. Brunner, thank you on behalf of the entire world population.
I admire the way you bring lawyers together.
It is the best solution we can strive for.
The people are like little children.
You are our fathers, you know the law.
You conveyed this wonderfully, we understood it.
We wish you a good fight and a whole host of others.
The people must never forget that they are the sovereign.
And the government is not my superior, but my employee.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
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