After documents from his research project on radicalization in prison were confiscated by the police, a professor sued – initially without success. Now the Federal Constitutional Court has strengthened its position.
A psychology professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and an employee interviewed prisoners. With their research project “Islamist Radicalization in Prisons” they wanted to find out why prisoners turn to extremist ideas and whether they become increasingly radicalized in prison. All respondents were assured of confidentiality, including a prisoner named Abdullah H., who was serving time for a drug offense. “You won’t have any problems because of this,” everyone was told in writing.
A little later, the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office investigated Abdullah H. on suspicion of membership in a terrorist organization abroad. A former fellow prisoner had apparently denounced him.
Constitutional complaint inadmissible for formal reasons
The public prosecutor’s office hoped to gain insight into this suspicion from the survey. At some point, two police officers from the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office stood in front of the professor’s door and showed him a search and seizure warrant. The scientist then gave the officers a USB stick with all the data including the interview.
The scientist sued, without success: the Munich Higher Regional Court approved the investigators’ actions. He then filed a constitutional complaint.
The Federal Constitutional Court has now decided that the complaint is inadmissible for purely formal reasons. An important deadline was not met when the statement of claim was filed.
Freedom of research protected by the Basic Law
Normally the judges could have left it at that. But they also made it clear in their decision that they consider the actions of the prosecutors and the decision of the Munich Higher Regional Court to be unconstitutional. Freedom of research and science is protected by the Basic Law and has not been adequately taken into account here. Especially in the area of crime prevention, it is very important to be able to collect data confidentially. Research in this area is of particular importance for “the rule of law”.
With this decision, the Federal Constitutional Court has significantly strengthened academic and research freedom. If law enforcement authorities want to access confidentially obtained data from researchers and scientists, this will only be constitutionally permissible in the future within very narrow limits and in absolutely exceptional cases.
File number: 1 BvR 2219/20