The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig has ruled on the lawsuit filed by Member of Parliament Bodo Ramelow – MdL – challenging the collection of personal information about him by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).
The plaintiff is a member of the DIE LINKE party and served as a Member of the 16th German Bundestag. He has since become a member of the Thuringian State Parliament, where he chairs the DIE LINKE parliamentary group. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution collects information about the plaintiff's activities within the DIE LINKE party and his parliamentary work, but explicitly excludes his voting behavior and statements made in parliament and its committees. The plaintiff was largely successful with his lawsuit in the two lower instances. While the Higher Administrative Court acknowledged factual indications of anti-constitutional endeavors by the DIE LINKE party, it deemed the collection of personal information about the plaintiff disproportionate.
Upon the appeal filed by the defendant BfV, the Federal Administrative Court dismissed the lawsuit. For reasons of appellate law, the court was bound by the findings of the Higher Administrative Court, which confirmed factual indications of anti-constitutional endeavors by the DIE LINKE party. The plaintiff's activities within the PDS, Linkspartei.PDS, and DIE LINKE parties also justify the collection of information about him by the BfV through open observation.
The observation of the plaintiff is not precluded simply because the Higher Administrative Court determined that he personally does not pursue anti-constitutional endeavors. The provision of Section 4 (1) sentence 1 letter c of the Federal Act on the Protection of the Constitution (BVerfSchG) is also applicable to members of a state parliament or the German Bundestag; parliamentary legal principles do not oppose this. This similarly applies to the principle of the free mandate as stipulated in Article 38 (1) of the Basic Law (GG).
The observation of the plaintiff was proportionate. It proved to be particularly appropriate. While intelligence surveillance of members of parliament entails considerable risks concerning their independence and the involvement of the affected parties in political opinion-forming, thereby impacting the overall process of democratic will-formation, the burden of this observation on the plaintiff was mitigated. This was due to the BfV limiting itself to open observation and explicitly excluding the core of the plaintiff's parliamentary activities. Conversely, the legitimacy of the observation is supported by the paramount importance of protecting the liberal democratic basic order and the fact that the plaintiff is a leading functionary of the DIE LINKE party.
Judgment of the Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG) of July 21, 2010 – Ref: 6 C 22.09 –
Source: Press release of the Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG)
Goldberg Rechtsanwälte
Attorney-at-Law Michael Ullrich, LL.M. (Information Law)
Specialist lawyer for information technology law (IT law)
Email: info@goldberg.de
