Sauter case: Bavaria is further than the traffic light in the fight against corruption - but is now stumbling on one detail
Created: 07/15/2022 10:51 am
By: Christian Deutschländer
The traffic light coalition wants to prevent bribery of MPs with stricter laws.
Bavaria is already further - but stumbles in the "transparency offensive".
Munich – It is a compliment for a Minister of Justice to have made a decisive contribution to the further development of the law.
The Bavarian Minister of State for Justice Alfred Sauter can probably claim that for himself.
A process is slowly getting under way in the federal government to tighten the corruption rules for members of parliament.
"We have to tackle that now," said all three governing parties.
Trigger: the Sauter case.
The long-standing CSU deputy and minister recently won in the last instance in the dispute over his mask business.
Brokering the sales to the state and receiving commissions for it – in his case 1.2 million euros to a related company – was not a form of bribery because the law has a loophole here.
The Swabian remains unpunished, is legally considered innocent and is allowed to keep the full amount of the money.
CSU and the mask affair: Work is underway to tighten the law
The gap will be closed “as soon as possible”, says SPD right-wing politician Sonja Eichwede in the
Tagesspiegel
.
"We are already working intensively on an effective and practicable tightening of the law." The traffic light coalition is working "with high priority" to effectively prevent corruption of MPs, say the FDP lawyer Stephan Thomae and several Green politicians.
That's what the coalition agreement promises, page 9.
Paragraph 108e of the Criminal Code is to be reformed.
Sauter and his fellow party member Georg Nüßlein were legally saved by the fact that they could – to put it simply – say that they had sold masks as private individuals, not as members of parliament.
In the future, it should be clear that the abuse of the rank of a Member of Parliament and the associated taking of advantages are also punishable.
Support also comes from the CSU in the Bundestag.
Stricter rules already apply in Bavaria
In Bavaria, a further tightening has been formally in force since April, even more clearly.
Since then, all MPs have been forbidden to do business with or against the state, not even as a lawyer, nor with subordinate authorities or state holdings.
Here, too, a lot sounds like Sauter, who, as a lawyer, looked after customers for, with, against the Free State in many real estate matters, among other things.
At the same time, MPs should not be banned from every side job - they should continue to be part of normal life.
However, there is still one central point: the additional income of the deputies, which should have been published to the cent since July, is still nowhere to be found.
The state parliament office is overloaded with so many messages that arrived shortly before the end of the period.
July 25 is now the target.
Previously, a step-by-step rule applied.
For top earners, that was gentle – they didn't have to name any numbers, just "Level 10", which summarizes everything over 250,000 euros.
Mask affair: SPD wants to hold Sauter accountable
Meanwhile, the opposition has committed to summoning Sauter again to the ongoing mask investigation committee in the state parliament.
After the BGH ruling, Sauter no longer has the right to refuse to testify, says SPD MP Markus Rinderspacher.
“As a witness, he is now obliged to come clean.
Anyone who earns millions from the misery of the people must answer questions before the democratic public.” (
cd
)
