Contergan victims have to accept that foreign aid is counted towards the capital compensation according to the Contergan Foundation Act and the Contergan pension. With a decision published on Wednesday in Karlsruhe, a thalidomide victim living in Ireland was unsuccessful before the highest German court.
Between 1958 and 1962, around 10,000 children worldwide were born with severe limb deformities and other physical defects, often with shortened arms or legs – their mothers had taken the thalidomide-containing sleeping pill and sedative Contergan from the German pharmaceutical company Grünenthal during pregnancy.
Since 1972, the state Contergan Foundation has been making pension payments and other benefits to people affected by thalidomide at home and abroad. The plaintiff from Ireland receives benefits from the Irish state in addition to the German thalidomide pension because of his thalidomide damage. These payments have been offset against his thalidomide pension since 2013. He went to court against this.
The Federal Administrative Court referred the matter to the Federal Constitutional Court. That decided: The challenged passage of the law on the Contergan Foundation for Disabled People (Contergan Foundation Act) is constitutional. The offsetting regulation does encroach on the property rights of thalidomide pension recipients. However, the intervention is justified. “The regulation prevents double benefits and thus avoids impairment of the equality of benefit recipients,” said the Federal Constitutional Court (1 BvL 6/21 – decision of November 21, 2023).
