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Federal Executive of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen: We should be granted a bit of Schadenfreude
Photo: teutopress GmbH / imago images/teutopress
Christmas
It's not going really well for the Annalena team, you can say that. The wreath-laying ceremony in Moscow was, from the point of view of international law, quite an introduction, although one shivers a little when looking at the photos and wishes the protagonist a proper St. Petersburg sable coat. But Heiko might have done that in a body-hugging linen suit, and so we want to signal diplomatic continuity here as a precaution. The thing with Sergej was a bit more serious, and he didn't look really scared, as you have to admit. Anyway, we still went to the art gallery for a little bit, very nice, very nice, and then, with 99 balloons, roared high over the deployment area, back to Robert and Katrin's, who admittedly are not influenced by cursory international law,but at least it comes from the aborted theology and for that reason alone I would have liked to have held at least five Christmas speeches, but here too: Unfortunately!
Thomas Fisher
born 1953 in Werdohl (NRW), was presiding judge at the 2nd Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice, is the author of the Standard Commentary on the Criminal Code and author of numerous columns in which he deals with questions of criminal law.
And here we are, dear readers, at the Christmas bonus. Some employers have to pay it, some want it, almost everyone is allowed to. You can do this out of joy at the appearance of the Star of Bethlehem, or because the fuel from the Orient is so expensive, or just because, by standing order. It can also be given out for special achievements in election campaigns, although the actual prize should be the mandate, which is why the salary bonus should probably be given to the legally indigenous Cree slaves and not to the Indian chief. But each board does that as it wants.
After the Christmas money error and the scientific error and the error in international law, now this corona bonus lapse!
Although “now” is a bit of an exaggeration: the auditors, who – metaphorically and prejudice-driven as we are – can perhaps all be imagined as skinny Protestant stamp collectors in the Greens – told the party of resolute modernization a year ago that it doesn't really work that way, at least not when law, law and secret statutes still have any value in this world.
cash check
Where there's an auditor, there's a reporter not far away, many have had to experience that. Because the citizen as such watches with eagle eyes and civil courage to ensure that no moral sinner can sneak away, no tax loophole exploiter escapes except himself and that no unauthorized removal from the scene of the accident goes unpunished. Besides, politicians are all overpaid anyway and regularly belong to the wrong party. A jungle of suspicions, conjectures and confidential information is growing on this fertile field.
So now the Berlin public prosecutor's office has the matter in hand, an authority with tremendous clout and nerves of steel. The charge is »infidelity« and that is a dogmatically difficult, morally bold and politically almost deadly fact, if one disregards slush funds and ironclad words of honour.
Infidelity is when a person who has a so-called asset care obligation or even has the power to dispose of someone else's assets causes the beneficiary/owner of this asset an economic disadvantage - financial loss.
This can happen through active action, but also through omission in breach of duty, and the disadvantage for the protected assets does not necessarily have to result in a mirror-inverted advantage for the perpetrator himself or a third party: It is enough if the perpetrator literally takes the other person's money out of the window or throws in the shredder.
In our case, it's about a perfectly normal, small combination of advantages and disadvantages in the form of a "corona bonus", which, in the opinion of its own auditors, the board of the party for transparency and decency is said to have personally approved itself, contrary to the provisions of the statutes. When your career has reached a point where no one notices it anymore, you are either the managing director of a limited company that is about to go bankrupt or a member of the board of something.
Now, of course, the party treasury of the Greens does not concern the anonymous voter and informer personally, because the money in this treasury was rightfully due to the party as a result of the meager donations from the tax funds that it receives. Since we have learned that the unlawful claiming of tax funds is now called "robbery", so that the full extent of the outrage can break out, we note: From the point of view of the angry taxpayer, the question does not arise whether one is committing stolen donations to party funding can, nor the question of whether robbers are also protected against infidelity (which is nonsense, but the prevailing opinion again since the 2nd criminal division of the BGH restored order).
It's just about the perfectly normal grip on the petty cash box, in this case the Corona cash box.
We've been reading since the day before yesterday that it really isn't worth mentioning, since it's only six times 1,500 euros, so a sum for which one could at best repair a window handle in the galley on the Gorch Fock.
On the other hand: We are thinking of certain cases in which supermarket cashiers and deposit slips occurred.
And to be honest: Would we have wanted to send Heiko to Mr Lavrow knowing, let's say the (fictitious) fact that he stole his tie in the men's boutique "Lui et Moi", which is why the most brutal possible investigative authority at the research association has now accused him?
prosecutor
"Now the public prosecutor is investigating" is a sentence that makes the blood of every infidel, refusal to testify and non-confessor freeze. It stands, literally or slightly modified, at the end of every proper investigative research, was previously called into the living room in a particularly threatening manner by Joachim Wagner and is recently spread as a permanent message by Mr. Oliver Schröm, who clarifies and accuses practically everything on his own and then does it at the same time who writes comments on it.
Sections 152, 160 and 170 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO) actually state with some degree of precision when and to what end "the public prosecutor will investigate". It starts when an "initial suspicion" is recognizable (section 152 subsection 2) and ends when the investigations have been completed (section 170). In between, he researches the facts (section 160 (1)). It's a bit difficult at the beginning because you don't know exactly if and when you should start or not. Every day, every prosecutor's office receives complaints of the caliber that all the judges in the local court are guilty of perverting the law by ordering Reich citizen X to pay the garbage fee. Or that the neighbor was guilty of grievous bodily harm by grilling sausages. Such advertisements »give no reason«,to investigate the situation. They are shelved in a "preliminary review process" that lasts about 30 seconds in both cases.
Everything else that goes beyond that, i.e. everything where you have to think about whether something is true, goes beyond a "preliminary examination procedure" and is actually a perfectly normal investigation procedure that leads either to hiring (§ 170 Para. 2) or to indictment (section 170 subsection 1). That's the principle. In practice, however, this is often handled differently. This in turn has to do with the above-mentioned "Now the prosecutor is investigating" and the notorious false reports and distortions that certain circles interested in the sensationality of the quick news spread. The "examination of initial suspicion" has since it seemed conceivable that the matter could have any unpleasant consequences for important people,developed into a highly demanding and often lengthy affair. I know of cases in which public prosecutors spend a year investigating whether there could be a very small initial suspicion against a minister or, for example, against a CEO from the DAX.
In this way (other parts of the blame are "Tatort" & Co.), the myth has spread that as soon as "the public prosecutor is investigating" one has to resign from the post of left-wing national defender, chairman of the parents' council or cardinal step back and, as a colleague, confidante or friend of the person concerned, immediately seek salvation in well-considered distancing if you value your own life.
For this purpose, media consultants have highly differentiated collections of forms from which the combination of shock, "unrestricted trust" and "presumption of innocence", which is advisable in individual cases, can be puzzled out.
politics
The Greens also have such media consultants, but with them it's a thing to have unlimited trust, as we were able to experience again in the film about the wonderful friendship between Robert and Annalena. That's why the Annalena prefers to do it alone, and if - yikes! - if something goes wrong, then as a class representative you know how to get out of it: Just straight ahead, eyes straight ahead and say the same thing again in a firm voice. After all, that's how Helmut Kohl and Margaret Thatcher did it, and the international law expert has now arrived in their advanced course. Most certainly. It just went stupid! A woman who wants to serve Germany must be allowed a little reach into the cash register. I don't know how the lawyers Künast and Keul see it, but I can report thatthat the Minister of State in the Foreign Office has little mercy with suspected breaches of duty in the public service, at least if they contradict her in the legal committee or in panel discussions. Let's see how far such a true female friendship goes when the prosecutor investigates.
So the whole thing is extremely uncomfortable for the ladies and gentlemen and friends: If they open a big keg, as befits an Annalena, that means: Bye, Foreign Office! No more Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Then Katja has to go. Serious state crisis: How can Germany survive against Russia without an international law expert? And what if Donald T. appears again?
Make no bones about it: Pretty lousy show. They can't get rid of the 1,500, so they can donate whatever they want and sing pious songs. Let's ask it this way: What would the management of, say, Deutsche Bank, VW or Mercedes do if six members were accused of shoplifting or cheating on Brazilian prostitutes? They would say: The presumption of innocence applies, but if the public prosecutor's office files charges, that's it. Otherwise at the end of the year, with the best of mutual consent.
But what if all six confessed and said: Oh, that just happened to us, it's not that much?
We'll pay it back, like last time?
Very bad!
You certainly shouldn't come up with "not so much" if you shed a few public tears of empathy every day about the desperate situation of the poor.
So it doesn't really matter whether it was 1,500 or 50,000: stolen is stolen.
On the other hand: what's the point?
It wasn't exactly our money, and when the dear friends of the big modernization party congress think that it's actually not that bad, then it's just like Ms. Alice Weidel: A little bit of illegality doesn't necessarily mean it's bad and besides, they must have meant well by themselves and didn't know.
Preliminary investigation result
I myself only know the files and therefore the situation from the newspaper, so I try to refrain from making hasty criminal prognosis. The StA Berlin already knows what infidelity is, and I'm sure that the standard that is applied to a foreign minister is not a millimeter different than the standard for field service employees or foreign office cleaning ladies. And we don't even get to § 153a StPO, because such correct people as the board of the Greens would never agree to a deal with the state treasury when it comes to the fraudulent loss of public funds.
The thing as such is certainly appealing: the moral tremolo and the obtrusive do-gooder attitude in every area of life, no matter how trivial, have been getting on your nerves for so long that you can just indulge in a little glee. But not for too long, because then it's pretty infantile. According to his own statements, Robert is now starting to set up so many windmills in Germany with the help of public funds that the local gross national product can continue to grow by 3 percent annually in 50 years, because otherwise the world will end. That is a big and totally modern goal, and the Chancellor whispers quietly: Yes, please! It is of course important whether you start with this modernity with 1,500 euros that may have been stolen or whether you prefer not to.
In terms of media, the matter is firstly a beautiful thing and secondly an ambivalent one: beautiful, because it's something different than just Corona, church or war forever.
On the other hand, badly timed because there is just too much going on at the same time: does Benedict have to resign from life or the Annalena from laying a wreath?
