For the second time in seven weeks, a prisoner stormed out of a courthouse in Bavaria on Monday – and it took a few hours for Georg Eisenreich, a representative of a large Bavarian opposition party, to make a juicy statement. At least that’s how it read. In fact, Eisenreich is Minister of Justice, but a non-government politician could hardly have done it more distantly and disapprovingly. In this respect, addressees should be particularly grateful this time for a classification statement in brackets, which was included in the statement as a service: “Georg Eisenreich (CSU, 52 years)”.
His speech can serve as a lesson for a guideline on how to succeed in embodying government and opposition politics at the same time if there is sufficient need. “It is unacceptable when prisoners manage to escape from Bavarian courts. Gaps in security are unacceptable,” the minister complained. But don’t leave it at the blame (“Today I immediately arranged for the background of the escape to be completely and immediately clarified together with the police”), but also distributed a pinch of praise, as a supposedly uninvolved person, not unlike an adjudicator: “It’s absolutely right that the police take the incident as an opportunity to work with the judiciary to review the operational concepts for guarding prisoners.” And ultimately proves to be a consistent crackdown: “In addition, I ordered today that every Bavarian court must report on the local security concepts by the end of the week.”
Before anyone gets the idea that the latter should have happened before the escape from the court in Regensburg – a convicted murderer had piled up there – something will be submitted later. Because someone was obviously not idle: “After Regensburg, the Ministry of Justice, on my instructions, asked the court practice in Regensburg to immediately check the security precautions on site and to take possible measures to increase the security of the building.” And that’s not all: “At the time, I also ordered a comprehensive security check to be drawn up for all Bavarian courts in coordination with the police.”
Which raises the question of how it was with the security check in Coburg – which came to Bayern quite late, but has undoubtedly been a part of it for a good 102 years. In the case of the 47-year-old who escaped from a window on the ground floor, the public prosecutor had shortly before attested a “high risk of escaping” and ensured that the man was taken into custody. During the court hearing, the prisoner’s shackles were removed, which is quite common. It is unusual that the cuffs were not put on when he went to the toilet. And it is amazing that the man was able to break open a window that was actually secured with a handle lock within seconds.
This affects the responsibilities of three ministries. The so-called demonstration service is a police officer in Coburg, the Ministry of the Interior is responsible; Court matters are the responsibility of the Justice Department; the structural conditions, i.e. said window, are now at least affecting the Ministry of Construction. All in the hands of the CSU.
Fortunately, the 47-year-old, sentenced in absentia to several years in prison for the sexual abuse of two of his daughters, was arrested on Tuesday. An eyewitness discovered him in the Coburg district, and then everything happened very quickly. In contrast to the case in Regensburg, the fugitive was only a little over 24 hours at large, in Regensburg it was several days. The statement by Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) contains criticism of his own people: “The police headquarters in Upper Franconia will follow up the incident meticulously and comprehensively together with the judiciary,” he announced. “Something like this must not happen again!”