German WOTD

Bundesnachrichtendienst/Bundesverfassungsgericht/Niko Härting/Oberstes Verwaltungsgericht

May

Bundesverfassungsgerichtsreform

Reform of Germany’s supreme Constitutional Court.

In an interview given because he wanted to encourage more discussion about the European Union, Constitutional Court president Andreas Voßkuhle indicated there’s talk about reforming the Bundesverfassungsgericht. He said it wouldn’t be a problem if future German supreme court judges were to be elected not by a Bundestag committee, as they are now, but by the Bundestag plenum, as long as the condition is maintained that the candidates do not make statements. Questioning the judges before their election “would threaten to immoderately politicize the Court.” It appears a seat on the Bundesverfassungsgericht is for one term only, because Dr. Voßkuhle said enabling re-election of supreme court judges would be a “stab in the heart” to judicial independence.

(BOON dess fair FOSS oongs geh R-R-R-ICHHTS ray form.)

Bundesverfassungsgericht/Discussion/Grosse Koalition/LongCompoundWords/Organization/Reform

Apr

Brennelementesteuer

A tax on the radioactive fuel elements used in nuclear reactors. Germany’s federal government created this tax in 2011 (the relevant law is called the, ahem, Kernbrennstoffsteuergesetz). Apparently the fuel rods tax has had a deterrent effect on the operation of nuclear power plants, while bringing in billions in revenue. Some utilities have challenged the tax in court.

Two lawsuits are pending before the Munich Financial Court. A court in Baden-Württemberg found that the fuel rods tax was okay. Relevant cases are also going to be heard by the German Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice.

The Hamburg Financial Court referred the question of whether the fuel rods tax is “even permissible” to the European Court of Justice in November 2013. That court could take more than a year to issue a decision.

After the Hamburg Financial Court had referred the larger question to the higher instance, it then decided this week, in response to accelerated petitions from the utilities, that the utilities could be temporarily freed from paying the fuel rod tax and that the German treasury should temporarily return 2.2 billion euros of paid tax to the utilities pending the higher courts’ decisions. The court said the government could appeal though, and if the government appeals within one month they would be temporarily freed from having to make the return payment.

(Bren ell em EN tah shtoy ah.)

(CAIRN bren shtoff SHTOY ah gez ETTS.)

Bundesverfassungsgericht/E.on/European Court of Justice/LongCompoundWords/Nuclear power/Nuclear waste/RWE/Taxes

Feb

Vorabentscheidungsverfahren

“Advance decision process.”

For the first time ever, Germany’s supreme court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht in Karlsruhe, sent a case on to the European Union’s supreme court, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. It was for a “decision in advance” on a lawsuit brought in Germany by members of the C.S.U. and Leftists political parties together with other groups, about whether the policy of the European Central Bank announced by Mario Draghi (Goldman Sachs) of buying theoretically unlimited amounts of debt from Member States would be exceeding the Bank’s current brief by redistributing money to countries that hadn’t cleaned up their governments yet. It’s also feared if left unlimited the policy might put the E.C.B. in the hazardous position of becoming a “bad bank” on behalf of the banks in the troubled countries whose debt it was buying.

Süddeutsche.de reported that this sort of debt purchasing, which a government must promise to cut costs and carry out structural reforms in order to receive, has never occurred, but the announcement that it was possible calmed the markets in 2012. Spiegel.de made it sound more like the structural reforms and cost cutting were linked to aid from the Euro-Rettungsschirm, the “euro rescue umbrella” bailout programs, but repeated that the E.C.B. has never carried out any of these so-called Outright Monetary Transactions.

After the Bundesverfassungsgericht receives the decision of the European Court of Justice on these questions, said the Spiegel.de article, it will then decide its own case. And here are four ways the Bundesverfassungsgericht said in its 52-page submission that the European Court of Justice might deal with the Bundesverfassungsgericht’s concerns:

“The bond purchases should not undermine the policies of the bailout funds [Rettungsschirme] which link loans to clear conditions such as savings programs and reform programs.”
“The E.C.B. would have to rule out the possibility of a debt haircut [Schuldenschnitt] for the purchased bonds, because in the end a haircut would mean financing of the country.”
“Individual Member States’ bonds may not be bought in unlimited amounts.”
“The E.C.B. should influence so-called pricing [Preisbildung] as little as possible by buying bonds shortly after their emission by the States.” Apparently the E.C.B. previously agreed to limit O.M.T.’s in this way to some degree by agreeing to not buy bonds immediately after emission and to follow purchasing time frames that will be defined in a guideline that will not be made public.

(Fore OB ent SHY doongs fair FAR en.)

Banks/Bundesverfassungsgericht/European Central Bank/European Court of Justice/History/LongCompoundWords/Outright monetary transactions/Ultra vires

Dec

“Demokratie, Rechtsstaat, Gewaltenteilung, Grundrechte, ein freies politisches Leben und das Recht auf eine wirksame Opposition”

Democracy, rule of law, separation of powers, basic rights, a free political life and the right to an effective opposition.

A pundit professor on public broadcaster ARD said these are in principle the “core substance” of the German constitution [Grundgesetz] and what that document means by the “freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung” [basic underlying free democratic order], which it said political parties in Germany can be banned for attempting to impair or eliminate. On 03 Dec 2013 the Bundesrat submitted another petition to the supreme constitutional court in Karlsruhe asking the court to ban the neonazi-esque N.P.D. party on grounds such as these, based this time on party members’ public statements rather than evidence collected from paid informants.

The German constitution outlaws actions that reduce democracy for future generations.

(Dame awk rah TEE, WRECKED shtot, geh VAULT en TILE oong, GRUNED wrecked eh, eye n fry ess poll it ish ess LAY ben oont doss WRECKED ow! f eye neh VEAHK zom eh opp oh zee tsee OWN.)

10 years ago Short URL 1 Comment

Bundesverfassungsgericht/Constitutional law/Democracy/Grundgesetz/NPD

Nov

Parteiengesetz

“Political parties law,” which defines some German election rules.

An Armistice Day article in Spiegel.de on the continuance of the neonazi-legacy N.P.D. party’s temporary loss of government political party financing due to “chaotic bookkeeping” mentioned some interesting aspects of German public financing of political parties and the parties’ reporting obligations. Under the Parteiengesetz, the German government gives all parties that receive at least 0.5% of the vote in Bundestag or European Union elections, and/or 1% in state elections, 85 eurocents for each vote received in E.U., Bundestag and German state parliamentary elections. That is reduced to 70 eurocents per vote >4 million votes. “Also, for each euro a party receives as a membership fee or donation, up to 3300 euros, the government pays another 38 eurocents.”

This money is paid to the parties in quarterly installments.

Spiegel.de said the N.P.D.’s financial trials began in 2007 when a Thuringian N.P.D. official named Golkowski was caught using fake donation receipts in order to get more matching funds from the government. This may have been going on since the 1990’s. The error was compounded by the so-called “chaotic bookkeeping” in that year’s year-end reporting that should have been glass-clear in order to avoid more trouble but in which party treasurer Köster apparently misplaced almost 900,000 euros by using the wrong tables at one point. As per the Parteiengesetz, the N.P.D. had to return the inappropriately obtained donation-matching funds (almost 900,000 euros) and pay a fine double that amount. Accordingly, the Bundestag announced the N.P.D. would be fined 2.5 million euros for the malfeasance, but in December 2012 the supreme constitution court in Karlsruhe, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, reduced the fine to 1.27 million euros because, they said, the Bundestag had overlooked the fact that the radical right-wing party had provided “coherent/conclusive explanations” [“schlüssig erläutert“] of some of the points they were accused of. In May 2013, in response to the N.P.D.’s accelerated appeal to the supreme constitutional court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht said the government would have to pay the N.P.D.’s 15 May 2013 and 15 Aug 2013 quarterly payments “in advance” until a final court decision in the main hearing on the fine’s legality; this financed the party until at least the 22 Sep 2013 Bundestag election.

On 11 Nov 2013, the Bundesverfassungsgericht announced that the neonazi party’s fine would not be cancelled more yet and their 15 Nov 2013 payment can now be stopped. Although the N.P.D. had filed an accelerated appeal to the nation’s highest court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht said the party had not exhausted its relevant appeals in Berlin. The N.P.D. said they need this money now more than ever, with the E.U. Parliament election coming up.

Spiegel.de’s chart shows government contributions to the N.P.D. from 2003 to 2011. Red bar numbers represent government contributions in millions of euros. Beige bar numbers are government funding’s percentage of total N.P.D. income that year.

(Pot EYE en gezz ETZ.)

11 years ago Short URL 2 Comments

Accounting/Audits/Bundesverfassungsgericht/Campaign finance reform/Citizens United/Democracy/Discussion/Elections/Nazis/NPD/Thuringia/Transparency

Oct

Minderheitenrechte im Bundestag

Bundestag minority rights, minority meaning the multiple parties that aren’t part of the multiple-parties ruling coalition.

Update on 09 Oct 2013: If the two biggest parties, Chancellor Merkel’s C.D.U./C.S.U. and the S.P.D., form another huge coalition, the Green party + Leftists opposition would be so tiny they wouldn’t have the votes e.g. to create investigative committees [an Untersuchungsausschuss], call a special session [Sondersitzung] or ask the supreme court in Karlsruhe to check a law’s constitutionality [Normenkontrollklage]. Because of this, the Green party announced on 09 Oct 2013, they will consider asking the supreme court in Karlsruhe to review the situation and verify that minority rights are still appropriately guaranteed in the Bundestag should a grosse Koalition result from the 22 Sep 2013 election.

Update on 19 Oct 2013: C.D.U., C.S.U. and S.P.D. gave assurances that the ~9% + ~10% opposition consisting of two small parties would be allowed the same rights and control/inspection capabilities that require 25% in a normal Bundestag. Meanwhile, S.P.D. party members voted yes to proceed with negotiations with the C.D.U. for a new grosse Koalition government, that could start ruling in early December.

Interesting update on 16 Jan 2014: The “bonsai” Bundestag opposition really means it about wanting to change the rules so they don’t have to wait for members of the two big parties to magnanimously provide formal support enabling their initiatives. Bundestag president Norbert Lammert (C.D.U.) is considering a Bundestag law that would lower the minimum from 25%, but this pathway is unsatisfactory to the opposition because such a change could be undone just as easily. A change to the German constitution would be more permanent.

Amusing characterizations were swapped in this ZDF heute journal report. A Green party rep said the Leftists were intending to go “full opposition” this time while the Greens wanted to be a “constructive opposition.” A Leftists rep said the Greens were behaving like a “government-in-waiting.”

Update on 11 Feb 2014: The ruling grosse Koalition is still talking about making the changes to give the <25% opposition some tools besides speechifying. Though they are about to propose and pass a 10% raise for themselves within one week.

The grosse Koalition is saying yes, the Bundestag’s rules of procedure really ought to be changed to allow oppositions <25% to create investigative committees. But no, now they refuse to agree to allow <25% oppositions to ask the supreme court in Karlsruhe to check constitutionality of laws [Normenkontrollklage].

Update on 03 Apr 2014: The two parties in the grosse Koalition, C.D.U./C.S.U. + S.P.D., and the oppositional Green party voted to change the Bundestag’s rules of procedure to allow this 19% opposition to create investigative committees and call special sessions. The oppositional Leftists abstained because the compromise agreement did not go far enough. The new rules will apply until the next Bundestag election.

Update on 28 Jun 2014: The bonsai opposition was unable to file complaints against the Bundestag’s creating automatic raises for itself and against the reform to Germany’s switch to renewable power sources. The Greens weren’t able to call a certain type of hearing to review last minute substantial changes to the Energiewende reform because they lacked the numbers.

(MINNED eah height en RECT eh im BOON dess tochh.)

11 years ago Short URL 1 Comment

Bundesverfassungsgericht/CDU/CSU/Green Party/Grosse Koalition/Leftists (Die Linken)/Negotiation/Parliamentary democracy/SPD

Jun

Rasterfahndung

“Grid search,” “raster manhunt.” Pre-crime data dragnet. Controversial German police method pushed into law in the 1970’s “to deal with the Red Army Faction,” preserved through the 1990’s “because of organized crime,” briefly tried out after the 9/11 attacks and considered by its critics to have failed, in which police are given access to big data troves to search for suspects before a crime is committed. The police create profiles of people they think are likely to commit crimes, identify characteristics for those profiles, identify data markers they think indicate those characteristics, and then use computers to “filter” large data troves for people with those markers. Files are opened for closer investigation of those “caught” in the dragnet and their friends, family, neighbors and other associates.

Several million data sets were shared and examined in this way after 9/11 but no arrests were made. The Bundesverfassungsgericht ultimately decided this was not legitimate and said future data investigations of the magnitude used in vain to find “sleepers” in Germany would have to be in response to a “concrete threat to high-level Rechtsgüter,” which might mean legal goods or legally protected interests. At an anti-neonazi march in Dresden in 2011, police got a court’s permission to collect all mobile phone “connections” data [Verbindungsdaten] in a large zone around the demo for several hours. ~300,000 people’s phone data were collected according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, some of which were then used for purposes other than originally submitted. Wikipedia says police also used drones and other cameras to record that demo. Videos from that march have been submitted as evidence in the trial of an anti-nazi youth pastor accused of urging people to throw stones at police.

(ROSS tah FOND oong.)

Bundesverfassungsgericht/Data protection/Dragnet/Metadata/Minority Report/Pre-crime/Profiling/Protests/Transparency

Jun

Volkszählungsurteil

“People-counting judgment,” the census decision made by the German constitutional court in the 1980’s. An online article I found on the history of Germany’s strongest interest in Datenschutz und Datensicherheit (data protection and data security) explained that country’s aversion to census-taking from a historical perspective. The Nazis took an infamous census of “greater German” territories in the 1930’s that collected data used to kill people later, supposedly with the aid of early computing machines. Later generations of Germans, especially the authority-questioning “1968 generation,” were early adopters of fears about the way a fact that is harmless in one context may become dangerous in another, meaning there is no longer such a thing as a harmless datum. It was and is the combination of mandatory registration with the local government of your residence and contact data, which all German residents still have to do, and a proposed resumption of census taking that set off the large protests against a census in Germany. Eventually the German constitutional court issued its decision reaffirming the first sentence of the German Civil Code, the right to human dignity, and saying control and protection of one’s information was protected by that right.

My source said the logic and humanity of the court’s granting of this protection, and seeing that the state obeyed the court’s decision and canceled the census, calmed the fears of the 1968 generation of antifaschist protesters and did a great deal to integrate them into civil society, which they now control.

(Folks TSAY loongs oor tile.)

1968 generation/Bundesverfassungsgericht/Census/Data protection/Datenschutz/Democracy/Dignity/Protests/Rule of law

Apr

Windhund-Verfahren

“Greyhound method” for first-come-first-serve allocation of press seats in the small state courtroom where the last surviving member of the neonazi serial-killing terrorist cell will go on trial this month. The foreign press didn’t find out about signing up until half an hour after local journalists had gotten the last seat. There has been serious shouting, ernsthafte Diskussion and a rapid decision by the constitutional court in Karlsruhe, and now the trial has been delayed a couple weeks and seats will be redistributed.

(VIND hoond fer FAR en.)

Bavaria/Bundesverfassungsgericht/Bureaucracy/Greyhounds/Journalism/Justice/Neonazis

Dec

2649 Belege

“2,649 pieces of evidence” which have been collected in a report that will be used in preliminary discussions of another runup to an attempt at banning the far-right German political party NDP (“usually described as a neonazi organization“) for violating the German Constitution. Every failed attempt to ban the NPD apparently has worse consequences than if they hadn’t made the effort, which is one reason why Federal Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU) said he’s skeptical about the current process. In 2003, the high court in Karlsruhe could not ban the NPD because too many people involved with the party and trial had been paid informants (V-people) for various government agencies. The current report has acknowledged that pitfall by collecting its 2,649 evidence items from public statements rather than testimony from potentially compromised witnesses.

On 5 Dec 2012 one of the small number of government institutions (Bundesverfassungsorgane, lit. “Federal Constitution Organs”) authorized to petition to ban a political party in Germany—in this case the state governors, who were also the group behind this report—unanimously voted to try again to ban the NPD. As Tagesschau.de explained in an online guide to this procedure, the hurdles for banning a political party in Germany are quite high due to lessons learned during the Weimar Republic.

Update on 22 Nov 2013: The federal states announced their petition to ban the N.P.D. party is now complete and will be submitted to the supreme constitutional court [Bundesverfassungsgericht] in Karlsruhe in early December 2013. The federal parliament, Bundestag, and federal government had decided not to join a new attempt at a ban, after failing to achieve one ten years ago before the court in Karlsruhe. The N.P.D. is currently experiencing financial troubles.

Update on 03 Dec 2013: The petition to ban the N.P.D. was submitted to the Bundesverfassungsgericht, which will decide whether to hear the case. Only two political party bans were ever issued in the Federal Republic of Germany, and both were more than fifty years ago, said ARD tagesschau.de legal correspondent Christoph Kehlbach.

(TSVYE t ow! zant, ZEX hoond errrt, N OY! N oond FEER tsig beh LAY geh.)

Bundesrat/Bundesverfassungsgericht/Bundesverfassungsorgan/CSU/Hans-Peter Friedrich/Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands/Neonazis/NPD/NSDAP/Organs/V-people/Weimar Republic

Nov

Anti-Terror-Datei

Central federal file of police and intelligence services’ information about potential and actual terrisss but also possibly about innocent burghers. Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has said this central file is Germany’s most important tool in the fight against tare. The “anti-terror file” is now being evaluated by the highest court (Bundesverfassungsgericht, Federal Constitutional Court) to see whether it violates the German Civil Code. Questions also include what information goes into the file and which German institutions and foreign intelligence services have access to it.

(AUNTie TERRor dot EYE.)

Bundesverfassungsgericht/Central file/Civil rights/Data privacy/Grundgesetz/Hans-Peter Friedrich/Organization/Police/War on terror

Oct

Wahlrecht

“Voting law.” The Bundestag is debating an overhaul of Germany’s electoral system. On 17 Oct 2012, Spiegel reported one issue was that the reforms currently under discussion might increase the size of the Bundestag to 700 M.P.’s (Spiegel-Online, “Bigger Than North Korea,” saying Germany would have the world’s second-largest parliament after China). Electoral reforms were necessitated by the Federal Constitutional Court’s decision in July 2012 that parts of the current law were unconstitutional, particularly with regard to Überhangmandate (which will be balanced out by proportional extra seats for the other parties). If a final agreement is reached rapidly, the new law could be in effect by Christmas 2012.

Update on 21 Feb 2013: The Bundestag reached an agreement on the new election rules. Überhangmandat seats will be canceled out by Ausgleichsmandat, compensation mandate, seats.

(VALL wrecked.)

Bundestag/Bundesverfassungsgericht/China/Elections/Electoral reform/North Korea/Parliamentary democracy

Sep

Bundesverfassungsgerichtsentscheidung, BVerfGE

Decision of the “Federal Constitutional Court,” the German equivalent, more or less, of the USA’s Supreme Court. The Court consists of two Senates and six chambers, each specializing in different fields. Each Senate currently consists of eight judges. The Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG) is located in Karlsruhe and has a staff of about 120 people.

At 10 a.m. on Wed., 12 Sept. 2012, the eight members of the second Senate of the Bundesverfassungsgericht will announce their decision on a challenge raised to Germany’s participation in the ESM, the European Stability Mechanism, an entity with 700 billion euros in capital but whose total potential financial assistance to troubled eurozone countries is capped at 500 billion euros. The Bundesverfassungsgericht scheduled an unusually long time period to deliberate the ESM challenge—eight weeks—and in the meantime last week the ESM’s importance was somewhat diminished by the European Central Bank’s announcement that it will buy an unlimited amount of state debt from troubled eurozone countries.

It is assumed that the Bundesverfassungsgericht will not overturn participation in the ESM but may define interesting conditions. For example, according to Der Spiegel, conditions for receiving aid from the ESM have not yet been defined. Do eurozone countries have an ESM veto right? What will be the interplay between the ECB and the ESM? The conditions for receiving money from the ECB are said to be rather loose right now.

(BOON dess fer FOSS oongs ger ICKTS ent SHY doong.)

Bundesverfassungsgericht/ECB/ESM/Judiciary/LongCompoundWords

Sep

Lauschangriff

Literally, “eavesdropping attack.” Lauschangriff was coined in 1977 after an illegal government bugging operation first reported by Der Spiegel.

The phrase “der grosse Lauschangriff,” the great or big eavesdropping operation, has been around since at least 1997 and describes legal government bugging of the residences of groups of people or professionals. This was apparently legalized by constitutional amendment in 1998. In 2004, Germany’s constitutional court required amendment of the amendment however, ruling that the grosser Lauschangriff violated the constitutional right to human dignity.

The “kleiner Lauschangriff,” small Lauschangriff, is the right accorded to German police and Verfassungsschutz to secretly listen in on and record conversations in public areas, offices and business premises that are accessible to everyone.

The above info was taken from this entertaining Deutsche Welle article, which further notes that eavesdroppers hear “their own shame” and other bad things about themselves.

(LOUSE shon griff.)