The chairwoman of the “Wildes Bayern” club, Christine Miller, has a reputation for being very controversial and stubborn. As far as their actions towards the head of the Berchtesgaden National Park, Roland Baier, this is definitely true. Miller has lost the court battle with Baier, which has been going on for a good three years, in all instances. Most recently, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe rejected Miller’s complaint against the non-admission of an appeal by the Munich Higher Regional Court. But Miller doesn’t want to give in even now.
“This is simply about the legal term of criticism of power,” she says, “i.e. the question of the extent to which it will be possible to criticize state actions in the future based on these decisions.” That’s why she will now file a constitutional complaint. However, the Federal Court of Justice, which rejected Miller’s complaint, sets the bar much lower. Its decision states that “neither the case has any fundamental significance” nor “the further development of the law or the securing of uniform jurisprudence requires a decision by the appeal court.”
Of course this all sounds strange. But the dispute is being closely watched in hunter, forester and conservation circles. Because it’s about hunting the chamois. This is an unparalleled hot topic in this scene. Miller and her club see themselves as chamois protectors. They are convinced that far too many chamois are shot, especially in the state mountain forests, but also in the Berchtesgaden National Park. A particular nuisance for them is the so-called lifting of the closed season in particularly sensitive mountain forests.
In principle, chamois may only be hunted between August 1st and December 15th. The rest of the year there is a closed season, i.e. hunting rest. However, the closed season has been lifted in around ten percent of the mountain forests in Bavaria, including a few in the Berchtesgaden National Park. This means that chamois can also be shot there outside of the period between August 1st and December 15th. The reason is that we particularly want to protect these forests from damage caused by animals. Because the shoots, especially of the young fir and beech trees, are delicacies for them. Miller, who has her supporters primarily in conservative hunting circles, sharply criticizes the abolition of the closed season.
The dispute between Miller and Baier revolves around two statements made by the club boss in an internet blog at the beginning of 2021. They are: “National Park shoots chamois during the closed season” (…) and “The Berchtesgaden National Park not only hunts chamois diligently (…), it also prefers to shoot them during the closed season”.
The national park boss was very annoyed by the two statements. But not because Miller, who likes to use polemics, attacked the national park, as Baier has repeated many times since. He has to live with that, he says. But because Baier is firmly convinced that both statements are untrue and Miller – as head of the national park – has accused him of a serious violation of the law. Baier’s argument: Hunting chamois in a forest where the closed season is lifted is something completely different than hunting during the closed season. The first is legal and provided for in the hunting law, the other is illegal and prohibited.
Christine Miller is chairwoman of the “Wildes Bayern” association.
(Photo: private)
So Baier sued Miller. And he was right in every instance. The judges ruled that both statements were false and therefore a serious violation of Baier’s personal rights. Miller gives the impression that Baier, as the person most responsible for the national park and therefore for hunting there, is violating legal regulations and ordering illegal measures. That is not the case, so Baier does not have to accept the statements.
From Miller’s point of view, the dispute is not about the question of “whether our blog post was right or wrong.” But “that criticism of official, state actions (…) is intended to legitimize the head of the authority, who is neither named nor intended in the article, to ban the article by citing his general personal rights.” If you grant a head of authority this right, says Miller, “it would have a massive impact on the criticism of power that is completely normal in a democracy.” Hence the constitutional complaint.
Baier expected such a maneuver from Miller. That’s why he’s already asked how high the success rate of constitutional complaints is. According to statistics from the Federal Constitutional Court, it has averaged 1.66 percent over the past ten years.