German Federal Constitutional Court protects roommates' privacy

The German Federal Constitutional Court has strengthened the privacy rights of individuals living in shared apartments (WGs) or communal living arrangements. In two recent rulings, the court clarified that the mere fact that a person lives with a suspect does not justify a police search of their private, lockable rooms.

Previously, lower courts had allowed such searches based on the assumption that evidence could be hidden in shared spaces or that roommates might have access to one another's rooms. In one case involving graffiti investigations in Nuremberg, authorities sought to search roommates' rooms under the assumption they were part of a specific political spectrum. In another case involving an alternative living project in Saxony, courts had treated the entire house as a single unit without individual room protections.

The Federal Constitutional Court rejected these approaches, stating that under Article 13 of the Basic Law, shared housing does not enjoy weaker fundamental rights than any other residence. To search the rooms of non-suspects, authorities must provide concrete evidence that specific evidence is likely located within those particular private spaces. The court noted that allowing searches based solely on proximity would make such intrusions ‘nearly limitless’.