Legislative plans
Association of Judges: New requirements for informants are unrealistic
Participants of the Bundestag committee of inquiry into the terrorist attack on the Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz. photo
© Christoph Soeder/dpa
They are used to solve serious crimes: informants and undercover investigators. The Federal Ministry of Justice would like to set stricter rules for this, but there is criticism from the Association of Judges.
The Federal Ministry of Justice wants to soon bring the plans it presented in December for the use of police informants and undercover investigators to the cabinet, but there is headwind from the German Association of Judges (DRB). “The The federal government’s legal plans for the deployment of undercover investigators and confidants go beyond the goal of legally anchoring the tried and tested rules for operations recognized by case law,” said the DRB federal managing director, Sven Rebehn, to the German Press Agency. The traffic light project provide for “unrealistic requirements for the so-called informants as well as “excessive documentation requirements”. Both of these make it significantly more difficult to use such informants.
When they offer themselves to the police as informants, so-called confidants (informed persons) are already involved in a criminal or extremist scene. Undercover investigators are police officers who, equipped with a legend, investigate a certain environment.
When asked, the Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Justice, Benjamin Strasser (FDP), who was significantly involved in the development of a draft law that is intended to provide guidelines for this, said that he was confident that the Federal Government would be able to present the draft law to the Bundestag for discussion in a timely manner. Among other things, the committees of inquiry into the murders of the right-wing terrorist NSU and the findings after the Islamist attack on a Berlin Christmas market in 2016 have shown how necessary a legal regulation regarding persons of trust is.
A man with the code name “Murat Cem” – in the files he is listed as confidant “VP-01” – was a top police informant in North Rhine-Westphalia for years. After providing valuable information from other areas of crime in exchange for money, he switched to the Islamist scene. There he also met the later Christmas market attacker Anis Amri, whose willingness to use violence he urgently warned the police about.
“In an effort to ensure the most comprehensive transparency possible, the draft law becomes unbalanced and partially loses sight of the state’s task of effective law enforcement,” criticized Rebehn. However, police confidants are indispensable in order to be able to solve serious crimes in isolated environments of organized crime or extremism. The Bundestag should take up the broad criticism of the plans from practice and improve the draft.
Press release from the BMJ on the draft bill