ALLIANCE FO§ DEMOCRACY

Is Germany Corrupt No More?

About a year ago, with the votes of all parliamentary groups, the Bundestag passed a law making the bribery of its member a criminal offence. There were 582 votes in favour, and 3 against – all from the CDU. There were 7 abstentions from all parties, and 39 blank votes, from all parties.
Up until this vote, under Paragraph 108e of the Criminal Code, only the buying of votes was banned. Now, Bundestag members and councillors who seek an unjustified advantage for themselves or others and therefore take or omit act actions during their terms on behalf of or on the instructions of others face fines or prisons sentences of up to five years.
Legally permitted (and documented) party contributions and the acceptance of political offices or duties are allowed. This was criticized, as was the provision regarding actions on behalf of or on the instructions of others, since it is virtually impossible to prove that a politician took actions for this purpose.
Despite the loopholes in the Bundestag bribery law, it paved the way for Germany’s ratification of the UN Convention against Corruption, approved by the General Assembly on 31 October 2003 ( Resolution 58/4).
This alone shows the patchwork arrangement of the party dictatorship, since some of the dictators may feel that restrictions have been placed on their freedom to act or on customary practices.
The Convention was ratified by 172 countries. The law took effect on 14 September 2005 after 30 countries ratified it. Germany signed the first internationally binding treaty against corruption under the Red-Green coalition government of the time, but failed to ratify it because there was still no regulation against the corruption of Bundestag members. This regulation was repeatedly blocked by the CDU/CDU and Liberal Party, which rejected all of the draft legislation. They argued that appointed and elected officials cannot be compared. Appointed public officials comply with laws and regulations and must be independent and act in the public interest, while members of the Bundestag have to be free to make decisions and act according to their conscience. It would not be possible to sufficiently define the term advantage and false accusations might be used in political power struggles. Such partisan power struggles put Germany on the same level with Syria or North Korea.
The Alliance for Democracy was one of the organizations who criticized this situation. In late March 2013, we sent a petition to the Bundestag’s Judicial Committee. In its reply, the Committee mentioned that there were many inquiries and letters on the subject, but did not take responsibility or announce any pending remedy. We almost gave up hope and thought conservative forces could prevent a law in accordance with UN stipulations from ever being introduced, but the Bundestag bribery law controls the buying and selling of votes and covers every aspect of performing the duties of office. Intangible benefits and contributions to third parties were also included as criminal offences. With the amendment to criminal law taking effect, these regulations now apply to all elected officials. The new law, which unfortunately still allows direct contributions to Bundestag members (§44a, Par. 2), took effect on 1 September 2014 and establishes the minimum conditions for Germany to become the 173rd country to finally ratify the UN Convention against Corruption.
The Bundestag approved it on 25 September 2014. The Bundesrat (Federal Council) followed suit on 13 October 2014 – thus removing a stain on Germany’s image. However, it shows that corruption is more than the bribery of elected officials, and Germany must continue to address this issue if it wants to be the model state it pretends to be.
There is still no transparency about what a punishable offence is and when but transparency is a double-edged sword anyway. It remains to be seen whether German politicians and Germany’s economic bosses will benefit from this strategic political move if their purpose is to sell German products in Europe (and the rest of the world). German thriftiness in its European policy has not made it any friends. Little more can be expected if its purpose is to spread democratic principles. Every political or other negotiating partner will be surprised if Merkel & Co. changes stripes overnight with the partial implementation of the UN resolution. That would be very hard to believe.

The perspective under which corruption is to be judged in particular must also be taken into account, the constitutional authority that the federal and regional governments may exercise with their state prosecutors, i.e. their subordination during judicial proceedings to the instructions of the Interior and Justice ministries of these governments – perhaps even in the internal interactions between federal and state governments. Then there are the formally independent high judges, who are appointed by politicians and therefore necessarily biased in rendering their decisions and judgements on partisan legal issues. In addition, the lower courts are controlled by the party policy directives, and the supposedly independent judges of the highest courts provide cover for such decisions at all levels of the judicial system, which these high judges, with their bias, can avail themselves of to the benefit of the political parties. This means legitimizing government injustices, which does not satisfy the people’s sense of justice in any way. Nevertheless these judgements and decisions are signed “on behalf of the people” – a method that has proven to be effective in the past with the arrogation of its legal position via the actual, vicarious sovereigns, deliberately defrauding the people with the immorally conceived Constitution of 1949, excluding the voice of the people, the rightful sovereigns.

This fact alone justifies the more legitimate question of whether the aforementioned control over the justice system, which turns injustices into law, suggests the possibility of corruption. After all, when high court judges and subordinate prosecutors are being appointed by these partisan politicians, even if there is no direct intervention in proceedings on behalf of these politicians, would the general population be able to expect such friends to intervene on their behalf in proceedings that affect them? This would imply having control of the system from top to bottom and working against themselves within a framework of subordination.