The Bavarian Supreme Court has overturned an acquittal for far-right former city councilor Karl Richter. It’s about flyers and posters from Richter’s “citizens’ initiative to stop foreigners” in the 2020 local election campaign.
Five people are shown in a caricature: Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD), the current mayor Katrin Habenschaden (Greens), then Mayor Manuel Pretzl (CSU), the leading Green City Councilor Dominik Krause and the then SPD City Councilor Marian Offman. They are swept out of the town hall by a Munich child with a broom, and the following is read: “Traitors of the people out of the town hall.” Offman, who was the only city councilor of Jewish faith who got the process rolling, considers it anti-Semitic that he is the only “backbencher” depicted at the time.
First, the district court sentenced Karl Richter to a fine of 80 daily rates of 40 euros for insult. In the second instance, however, the regional court acquitted the judges: the leaflet was covered by freedom of expression, the wording was neither insult nor abusive criticism. A comparison with depictions from the Nazi era was “completely absurd,” says the verdict. This decision, in turn, has now been overturned by the 5th criminal division of the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court and referred the proceedings back to another chamber of the regional court.
The Bavarian Supreme states that value judgments about other people are also permitted within the framework of freedom of expression. However, this right does not apply without restrictions, it is limited by the general right of personality, above all when human dignity is violated by disparaging statements. Then the freedom of expression would have to take a back seat to the “protection of honour”. The appeals court has not decided whether this is the case with the flyer and poster of the right-wing extremist Richter. But she complains that the regional court did not examine whether human dignity had been violated in this case.
In a first reaction, Marian Offman called the revision decision “very gratifying”. The right-wing extremist’s acquittal made him “very depressed” and he was “desperate” to see what was possible in his hometown. Now he is in a positive mood again: “It takes a load off my heart.”