Annual Report on the Protection of the Constitution (Germany)

Germany

Protection of the Constitution reports are annually issued by the Ministries of the Interior of the Federal and State Governments, in cooperation with the respective offices for constitutional protection. They are part of the publication of the federal government or the respective state government.

Constitutional Protection Report of the Federal

The best known and applicable to the whole federal territory Verfassungsschutzbericht is published by the Federal Ministry of the Interior ( BMI). The Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution ( BFV ) created the first draft, which is endredigiert from BMI. Legal basis for the publication of constitutional protection reports of BMI is § 16 of the Federal Constitution Protection Act ( BVerfSchG ) of 20 December 1990 as amended on 21 June 2005. Thereafter, the public should "at least once a year in a summary report " be aware of "aspirations and practices pursuant to § 3 Section 1 " BVerfSchG. Such policies and activities are under the legal definition ( § 3 para 1 BVerfSchG ):

The publication of constitutional protection reports is the concept of " constitutional protection through education " basis, which has been largely co-developed by Hans Joachim Schwagerl. Your self-image according to the reports of the security shall contribute to the " intellectual and political discussion of the various forms of extremism."

Divides are the reports of the security in right -and left- wing extremist activity (since the Federal Government's carbon side with a brown or red bar color-coded), unsafe and extremist efforts of foreigners (green color bar in the margin ), espionage and the work of foreign intelligence services in the Federal Republic and about Scientology. This report also lists the legal basis for the work of the Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution, military counterintelligence and Federal Intelligence Service. Reports shall also contain a statement that they contain " no definitive list of all " anti-constitutional groups or observation objects of BFV.

Historical Development

The publication of constitutional protection reports was not from the beginning to the instruments of " militant democracy ", but represents a development that began in the 1960s. Interior Secretary Ritter von Lex and BFV - President Hubert Schrübbers had on the Conference of Interior Ministers on 27-28. May 1960 in Kiel represented the view that the constitutional protection authorities could not take on the task of educating the public about anti-constitutional activities. Instead, the Federal Ministry of the Interior took the reins of the task and in April 1962 published a paper on "Experiences from the observation and defense of right-wing and anti-Semitic trends 1961". She put the first forerunner of today's reports of the security dar. occasion for the publication were then according to Hans - Helmuth Knütter, the long time the BMI had scientific advice, the press reports of alleged 70,000 right-wing youths in the Federal Republic, which the federal government, " the German prestige in abroad " damaged saw and which they then added with therefore with the finding that there was not more than 2300 right-wing youths, confronted ( Knütter / Winckler, the protection of the Constitution, 2000, p 40). 1965 was followed by a corresponding record of " Communist activities in the Federal Republic in 1964 ."

In 1969 published the Public Relations Division of the Ministry of the Interior for the first time an " experience report on the observations of the Offices for Protection of the Constitution in 1968 " to, as it says in the preface, " to put the citizens in this way in a position to get a well-founded judgment to form the manner in which the herd and the free democratic basic order of our state of these efforts dangers threaten. The coverage is not as political engagement with these forces even as constitutional legal assessment to understand the same. " The report in the form of a small paperback book of 152 pages in length divided into three main chapters of " Right-wing extremist aspirations ", " Communist and other left wing extremist activity "and" counterintelligence in Germany in 1968. " The first main chapter was devoted mainly to the NPD, the second of the banned Communist Party and its successor party DKP. Mention was made of the national newspaper of Gerhard Frey, the SEW as West Berlin branch of the SED and the KPD / ML. Under the section " activities of other left -wing groups " of the Socialist German Student Union (SDS ) was discussed along with four with him cooperating associations ( the Republican Club Berlin, Republican help, Socialist Bund and Action Centre of Independent and Socialist Students ). A separate chapter "foreigners extremism " did not exist. However, " groupings outside the NPD right-wing extremists ", among other things right-wing exile Croats was reported in the section as well as a sub-chapter " Communist influence among foreign workers " included in the report. Islamists then played no role. This first comprehensive Verfassungsschutzbericht then followed by further annual reports, first with the label " Subject: Protection of the Constitution ", and later officially called " Constitutional Protection Report ".

At the country level Hesse took with the establishment of a Unit for the education of the public in the Hessian Ministry of the Interior in 1968/69, which was from 1973 " Department of informative Protection of the Constitution ," a pioneering role. In contrast, North Rhine-Westphalia state OPC reports are published only since 1977. For a long time there was no statutory authorization for the publication of constitutional protection reports, the entrance was quite late in the constitutional protection laws of the Federation and the Länder.

With the decision on the constitutional complaint, the newspaper " Junge Freiheit " against their entries in this Annual Report of the State of North Rhine -Westphalia, the Federal Constitutional Court has set stringent criteria for public reporting in 2005 the constitution protection authorities and interior ministries. A mere suspicion or vague pre- factors are sufficient for a future naming of associations and publications in domestic intelligence reports any more. The Freiburg Staatsrechtler Dietrich Murswiek came in a study presented in December 2009 to the conclusion that the reports of the security were unconstitutional since the JF- judgment. In support Murswiek refers to the fact that in the constitutional protection of the federal and state reports will not, or not sufficiently clear distinction ( with the exception of Berlin and Brandenburg ) between suspected cases and cases of proven constitutional hostility either. Murswiek concludes that almost without exception, all countries would have learned nothing from the Karlsruhe decision had yet called for a clear distinction.

( Constitutional) Legal problems of constitutional protection reports

For the first time took the Federal Constitutional Court in the so-called " extremists Decision" of 22 May 1975 on the practice of the reports of the security position. The publication of constitutional protection reports has been prepared by the Constitutional Court case considered verfassungskonfom and unproblematic, even with regard to political parties and from Article 21 paragraph 2 Basic Law (prohibiting monopoly of the Federal Constitutional Court ) devoted blocking effect, the legal measures taken by the state against an " anti-constitutional " party against a ban by the Constitutional Court excludes:

" The fact that the Federal Constitutional Court reserved decision on the unconstitutionality of a political party is not yet been issued, does not prevent the conviction may be obtained and represented the party pursuing anti-constitutional aims and is therefore to fight politically. One party, for example, programmatically propagates the dictatorship of the proletariat or the means of violence to overthrow the constitutional order in the affirmative, if it should conditions permit, followed unconstitutional objectives, even if according to § 43 BVerfGG application entitled prefer not to initiate the party closure cases, because the political dispute is sufficient or effective with it the liberal democratic order to protect within the meaning of the Basic Law can as a formal party ban. Therefore, it is constitutionally unobjectionable and demanded by the political responsibility of the government that it submits its annual report on the development of anti-constitutional forces, groups and parties to Parliament and the public. As far as incurring for a party de facto disadvantages ( in the recovery of members or followers ), it is not protected by Article 21 of the Basic Law. The same applies to factual adverse effects that indirectly set out from the barriers that Article 33, paragraph 5 of the Basic Law for access to public service and for leaving in the civil service erects arise. "

This view is confirmed in the Constitutional Court decision of 29 October 1975 filed a complaint against the NPD had their mention in the Federal Constitutional Protection Report 1973 Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court resulted from. .:

" The published as part of the public relations work of the Federal Ministry of the Interior report ' Protection of the Constitution '73 ' does not constitute an administrative, Intervene against the NPD, nor will be made by the publication of this report, a unconstitutionality of the NPD legally asserted. When challenged by the applicant utterances of the report, the NPD is a party with anti-constitutional aims and operation ', is, right-wing, right-wing extremist, an enemy of freedom and a threat to the liberal order ', it is, rather, value judgments, the the Federal Minister of the Interior has submitted in fulfillment of its constitutional duty to protect the free democratic basic order, and under its flowing from it are responsible for the observation of anti-constitutional groups and activities. At this value judgments no legal effects are attached. As far as incurring for a party de facto disadvantages, it is not protected by Article 21 of the Basic Law. "

As the limit for reporting the Federal Constitutional Court saw only the prohibition of arbitrariness:

" Then it would be forbidden by the government to suspect a non-prohibited political party in public sustainably unconstitutional purpose and operation, if this measure would be a reasonable appraisal of the GG dominant thought no more sensible and therefore the Schlußaufdrängte that it was based on extraneous considerations. "

Country reports of the security

The Offices for the Protection of the Constitution give out annual reports of the security that illuminate the work of the Authority in the corresponding state and call and assess the existing ( and known ) hazards. The constitutional protection reports are available on the websites accessible.

Decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court

The Federal Constitutional Court has so far taken in three decisions to Verfassungsschutzbericht position:

  • Federal Constitutional Court, decision of 22 May 1975 Az 2 BvL 13/73, BVerfGE 39, 334 - extremists decision
  • Federal Constitutional Court, decision of 29 October 1975, Case No. 2 BvE 1/75, BVerfGE 40, 287 - Decision to mention the NPD in this Annual Report
  • Federal Constitutional Court, decision of 24 May 2005, Az 1BvR 1072/ 01, BVerfGE 113, 63 - Junge Freiheit

Austria

Editor of the reports of the security Austria is the Federal Agency for State Protection and Counter Terrorism.

Switzerland

The Federal Intelligence Service ( FIS ) annually publishes the annual report "Security Switzerland ".

801346
de