## Facts

- German authorities issued a first partial construction permit (Dec. 18, 1972) for the SNR-300 fast breeder nuclear power plant near Kalkar, North Rhine–Westphalia.
- A nearby farm owner sued to revoke the permit, alleging procedural defects and violations of rights to life, bodily integrity, and personality due to nuclear accident risks.
- An administrative court rejected the claim; on appeal, the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine–Westphalia questioned whether the Atomic Energy Act’s licensing standard was constitutionally sufficient.
- The Higher Administrative Court referred the question for constitutional review, challenging the constitutionality of the Atomic Energy Act provisions requiring a license and conditioning approval on “every necessary precaution in light of existing scientific knowledge and technology.”
- The constitutional review addressed the statute’s broad safety clause and its delegation of technical risk regulation to administrative authorities, rather than assessing the individual permit itself.

## Issues

1. Whether the democratic principle and parliamentary-reservation doctrine require the legislature to specify more concrete nuclear safety criteria, rather than using a broad safety clause implemented by the executive.
2. Whether the statute adequately satisfies the state’s constitutional duty to protect life and bodily integrity despite unavoidable “residual risk” of severe nuclear accidents.
3. Whether reliance on indeterminate legal concepts and a safety standard tied to evolving scientific and technical knowledge is compatible with rule-of-law requirements, including legal certainty and judicial review.

## Decision

- The court held that the challenged Atomic Energy Act provisions were constitutional.
- Parliament had made the fundamental policy decision to permit peaceful nuclear energy subject to stringent licensing and safety constraints; detailed technical specification could be left to administration within the statutory program.
- The “state of science and technology” reference was upheld as an objective, ascertainable benchmark permitting legally reviewable, continuously updated safety requirements.
- The statutory scheme was construed as demanding extremely high precaution—measures that, under current scientific and technical knowledge, practically exclude damage—while recognizing that a minimal residual risk cannot be eliminated.
- The duty to protect life and bodily integrity was satisfied through stringent precaution, ongoing updating of safety expectations, and proportionality balancing with other protected interests.

## Legal Principles

- Legislatures must decide “essential” matters affecting fundamental freedoms, but may delegate technical concretization to the executive when the statute supplies a sufficient normative program, particularly in complex, rapidly developing technical fields.
- A preventive-prohibition licensing model for dangerous technologies is constitutionally permissible when authorization depends on strict, enforceable safety conditions.
- Indeterminate legal concepts are compatible with legal certainty if anchored to objective criteria and subject to effective judicial review.
- The constitutional duty to protect life and bodily integrity is forward-looking and extends to protection against environmental and technological hazards, but it does not require absolute elimination of risk.
- The constitution permits acceptance of residual risk where the state requires the greatest achievable protection under current science and technology, subject to proportionality and continuous reassessment.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Germany’s nuclear licensing framework, ruling that Parliament may authorize nuclear energy through a statute using a broad, technically dynamic safety clause, so long as administrative implementation is tied to current science and technology, remains judicially reviewable, and provides the greatest realistically achievable protection despite unavoidable residual risk.


Kalkar Case I (SNR-300), 49 BVerfGE 89 (Ger. Fed. Const. Ct. 1978)