Military aid to the civil power (MACP) is assistance by the armed forces to the police in maintaining law and order. It is used in many countries, including Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
United Kingdom
MACP is one of the fundamental military tasks of the British Army.
As with all deployments of the armed forces, its use must be specifically
authorised by a defence minister. It is always applied at the request of,
and under control of, the police. The legal basis is the common law duty
of every subject to maintain the Queen's peace.
Examples of military aid to the civil power include:
Germany
The post-war constitution of Germany strictly forbids the use of military force in police functions. The functions that MACP has in other countries are carried out by special police forces, which are basically under the control of the state governments, not of the federal government. For some actions, federal police forces can be used either by orders of the federal administration and federal judiciary or by request of the state government. The counter-terrorist unit GSG9, part of the Bundesgrenzschutz is well known in Germany for its antiterrorist missions, but several state police corps do have similar units. The Bundesgrenzschutz and the GSG9 were historically combatants and they had military ranks, but have allways been under the control of the Ministry of the Interior.
This strict seperation between civil and military power was enacted to prevent the army from becoming a political power again in internal affairs and to secure its subordination to the civil power. Since the 1990s, a number of conservative politicians has called for an abolition of this rule, but there seems to be no majority for such a change.
But a new law was passed in September 2004, the Air Security Act (german: Luftsicherheitsgesetz).
Since September 24th, 2004 there is an exception from the use of military force regarding air security: In a case of immenent danger, the Bundeswehr and their air force branch, the Luftwaffe is authorised to use force against an aircraft. As ultima ratio, the Minister of Defense is empowered to give the order to shoot down an aircraft if the aircraft is used as a weapon against men and there is no other way to repel the attack.
Air Policing is a traditional task of the Luftwaffe, while the constitutionality of the Air Security Act is disputed, the air policing done by the Luftwaffe is considered legal because of customary law.
See also
