[en] The author investigates the question of whether the North-Rhine Westphalian Government would have any chance to prevent the commissioning of the SNR on the basis of substantive law inferring on to the Land Government competences to do so within the meaning of the Atomic Energy Act, and the power industry legislation. The first issue investigated refers to the question of whether the licensing authority can in principle deny any operating license for a nuclear installation, implying that no construction licence has been issued. The author's conclusion is that any refusal to grant an operating licence should be justified by reasons such as uncertainties in plant safety engineering, lack of demand in the power industry sector, and lack of appropriate waste disposal facilities. Directives of the Federal Government to the contrary would be unlawful. This statement is in opposition to the dominant opinion, supporting the Federal Government's competence to issue directives as explained above. In the following, the author examines whether the reasons given for denial of the operating licence would justify such denial in the presence of construction licenses issued before, and states that the licensing authority has the possibility of freeing itself from its commitment by cancelling the preliminary license. A directive by the Federal Government, demanding the operating license to be issued by the Land Government, would have to be based on facts showing breach of duty, or otherwise would be contrary to the law. (orig./HSCH)

[en] In the opinion of the author, many arguments which are brought forward against factories and in particular against nuclear power plants by persons concerned are not adequately taken into account by the courts. He complains that for instance questions in regard to the benefit of new technologies and their effects on the job market to a large extent are left out of account. Courts evade a comprehensive evaluation of new technologies. (WG)

[en] The author who is the legal representative of a plaintiff from the Netherlands who took legal action against the licensing of the Emsland nuclear power station, explains the main reasons brought forward by the plaintiff. The argumentation is that human failure in the operation of a nuclear installation cannot be excluded in practice, despite the safety provided by the fairly automated, engineered safety system of such plant. The next question then arising is whether and to what degree human failure is predictable, or assessable in frequency, and whether such failure can be offset by appropriate technological measures, or mastered by engineered safety systems. The author's conclusion is that there is a deficit of investigation and available knowledge of the problem, for appropriate evaluation of the issue both at the licensing and the technical administrative level. The consequences of leaving the problem out of consideration are shown, together with improvements to be gained by dealing with the problems. (RST)

[en] The analysis of pico-second lifetime measurements for nuclear states on the basis of the Doppler effect is described whereby experiments with thick targets (Doppler shift attenuation method) and thin targets in the plunger arrangement are considered. The lifetime is deduced from the lineshape of ß-ray peaks measured in singles spectra in connection with neutron evaporation reactions. The stopping of the recoiling nuclei is calculated by means of the Monte-Carlo method. This method is also applied to average over the various kinematical variables. Illustrative examples for lifetime measurements using the DSA method for levels in ₇₆Kr and the plunger method for levels in ₈₂Kr are presented. (author)

[en] On the basis of jurisdiction in atomic law and in other planning and immission laws, the author deals with the question whether a plaintiff can base his action against a nuclear licence on the fact that the general population risk is very high around the chosen site or because of the type of reactors. Even if jurisdiction negates this question because of the function of the administrative-judicial legal protection (individual involvement), it nevertheless regards it as neccessary with the increasing number and size of NPPs, to make the general population risk accessable to actions. The author critically deals with the protection norm theory of the legal dogmatics and that of the practical jurisdiction. He suggests to replace the 'Nachbarklagen' model in atomic laws by a model of 'Eingriffsverwaltung' and to regard the licences primarily as tolerance declarations to the neighbourhood and secondarily as favouring administrative actions. (UN)

[en] The distribution of competencies between Federal Government and Land Governments with regard to nuclear installations licensing has been characterized until recently by a cooperative approach. The Federal Government used to give a statement prior to the first partial construction license and the first partial operating license, but the statements never had the character of instructions. The problem discussed in the contribution in hand arose when some of the Land Governments started to develop opinions and strategies in atomic energy policy that are contradictory to the policy adopted by the Federal Government, so that the question now to be answered is whether and to what extent a Land may claim judicial protection against instructions of the Federal Government. Two aspects are discussed: When is an instruction unlawful, and if so, is there the possibility of resorting to the courts, and to which court. The author makes a distinction between self-created unlawfulness of instructions, and unlawfulness created by third parties. In the first case, the author states the Federal Constitutional Court to be competent, in the latter case the Federal Administrative Court. (orig./HSCH)

[en] In some European countries, the legal provisions concerning the right to inspect files currently are under revision for extension. The Commission of the EC is preparing a directive in the field of pollution control. Attempts in this direction are under way in the F.R.G.. The author reviews the laws and the practice in France where experience is already available with advanced legal provisions on file inspection by private persons, of official files, also in matters regarding nuclear installations. The historical development of the relevant French laws since the Revolution is summarised, the authorities' duties to lay open files for inspection are discussed, as well as the current right of access to files, and duty to lay open, the procedure to be observed, and the items of access. It is shown that an extension of the right to inspect files does not imply difficulties, neither in practice nor in legal theory, and protective rights are sufficiently taken into account. (orig./RST)

No abstract available

[en] This is the retort and rejoinder to NJW 1980, 1505. For Mr. Pelzer the storage of spent nuclear fuel approved according to sect. 6 of the Atomic Energy Law is an explicitly approved form of the deviating, orderly disposal of radioactive waste. Messrs. Gleim and Winter consider the concept of compact storage as orderly waste disposal to be not to the point. (HSCH)

[en] The authors examine as potential statements fo fact for licensing so-called compact storage facilities for spent fuel elements Sec. 6 to 9c of the German Atomic Energy Act and Sec. 4 of the German Radiation Protection Ordinance. They find that none of these provisions were applicable to compact stroage facilities. In particular, the storage of spent fuel elements was no storage of nuclear fuels licensable under Sec. 6 of the Atomic Energy Act, because Sec. 6 did not cover spent fuel elements. Also in the other wording of the Atomic Energy Act there was no provision, which could be used as a statement of fact for licensing compact storage facilities. Such facilities could not be licensed and, for that reason, were not permitted. (IVR)