German top court rules police action illegal
When more than four years ago police detained a woman protesting against transportation of nuclear waste for more than 22 hours, they were breaking the law, Germany’s supreme court has ruled. The Federal Constitutional Court was passing judgment on a complaint by Martina Lammers, chair of The Greens organisation in the north German county of Lüchow-Dannenberg where a nuclear waste storage hall is located at Gorleben.
Lammers, then aged 34 and a mother of four, was one of almost 1,000 people seized by police and detained in various ways for trying to stop another waste convoy going into the Gorleben compound in November 2001.
Lammers argued to the supreme court that her detention from 10:20 a.m. on 13 November 2001 until 8:23 a.m. the next day was tantamount to “surrogate punishment” and that two lower courts denied her the legal aid she was entitled to.
Police had seized her with hundreds of other demonstrators who refused to leave a sit-down road blockade by about 200 people in the village of Splietau despite police orders over loudspeakers to do so.
Martina Lammers says she still has nightmares about what happened more than four years later.
After hours of being “locked in” by a police cordon on an open field, she was locked up in a police vehicle for a long time in a cell of about 2 m² for four people. Left standing on a barracks square, the prisoners had to shout and knock for attention to be allowed to use a portable toilet. No hand washing was possible. Mobile phones, food and drinks were taken away from the detainees. What was handed out to them in the afternoon and at night was not enough or was spoilt.
Only at about 5 p.m. Lammers was allowed to phone the emergency attorney service. Only after 11 p.m. she was allowed to phone her family that someone else needed to take care of her children, then aged between four and ten. In the dusty air of a vehicle hall serving as a mass cell for 100 detainees, Lammers, who suffers from asthma, had difficulty breathing.
On top of this police abuse came the inability or unwillingness of a lower court judge on duty to rule quickly whether the detention was legal. Even after the event, two lower courts in Dannenberg and Lüneburg refused the nuclear opponent the legal protection she was entitled to.
The constitutional judges (case file 2 BvR 447/05 of 13. 12. 2005) see Lammers’ constitutional rights to freedom and entitlement to effective legal protection violated.
They emphasise that in principle freedom can only be withdrawn on the order of a judge. Only in exceptional cases could a subsequent decision suffice, but it had to be made “without delay”.
The state of Lower Saxony, in which Gorleben is located, denied any violation of constitutional rights but did note cynically in its argumentation that the organisation of the legal handling of the detentions “may not yet have been optimal”. The state has been ordered to pay all of Frau Lammers’ costs.
The next lower court in Lüneburg has to try the case again.
Martina Lammers and her attorney, Ulrike Donat of Hamburg, are satisfied with the ruling. The lawyer emphasised that the supreme judges again criticised the police practice or slowing everything down in detentions and ruled that keeping in detention must not be a surrogate punishment.
Demonstrators who are detained have to be presented to a judge without delay. Arresting judges did not have to wait until they had police files to hand but could make decisions after oral questioning.
Lammers says she is grateful for her lawyer’s tenacity. She adds that it’s probably due to the case going to the supreme court that the police and judiciary handling of nuclear opponents had changed greatly since 2001.
Donat rates the judgment as a success of the anti-nuclear movement and the persistent work of a group of lawyers calling themselves the Association of Republican Lawyers (Republikanischer Anwaltsverein).
“The ruling shows that the constitutional court attentively follows events in Gorleben. More constitutional suits on deprivation of freedom by police and the practice of banning demonstrations by declaring large areas off limits are in train in the court. The ruling of 13 December indicates that the constitutional court is going to handle this matter very thoroughly.”
Donat said the ruling came in the sensationally short time of half a year. “The high standing of the basic right to freedom and the procedural guarantees provided by the constitution require especially careful investigation by judges, which in this case was not carried out by the lower courts. Every delay in a judge’s decision demands an explanation and justification by the judge, or it is illegal and unconstitutional.”
The top court’s ruling crowns a number of trial successes in lower courts which have already led to changed police practices, points out the Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg, the umbrella organisation of the Gorleben resistance.
Instead of 700 to 1,400 detentions of several hours per waste transport, the number has dropped to between 50 and 80 detentions in collection points. Instead of deprivations of freedom of 20 to 24 hours, in the 2004 and 2005 transports the police used blockades and encirclements only in the last two to four hours before the transports.
A collection point at Neu Tramm with unsuitable rooms has been given up and replaced by a more modern one in Lüchow. Arrest judges and police have improved and speeded up procedures. Despite this, judges last year rejected two thirds of the police applications for approval of detentions.
Donat rates as a special success the supreme court’s clear emphasis of the importance of the involvement of judges and the duty of courts to deal with the legality of detentions even after they have happened.
Donat recalls: “Again and again prisoners complained of intolerable detention conditions, such as lacking toilets, hygiene and food, hours of being locked up in tight cells in prisoner vehicles and untenable placement of more than 100 people in former vehicle halls without furniture, water and toilets. Detention must not be allowed to be a ‘surrogate punishment’.”
(Bürgerinitiative: Francis Althoff 05843 986789, Ulrike Donat 040 3193971.)
The spokesperson of the Federal Constitutional Court, Dietlind Weinland, noted that this was “the first case of this kind” to be decided by it. She listed six more similar cases being handled, four of them constitutional complaints by nuclear opponents against police detentions in 2001 and two because of a “police encirclement” in 2002.
Nuclear opponents in the Wendland, as the Gorleben area is called, feel vindicated by the ruling. “The mass detentions of nuclear opponents during previous transports were an intolerable situation,” said Jens Magerl, in Dannenberg, speaking for Initiative Widersetzen.
Magerl said he’s “very happy” about the ruling. The waste transports are no local Gorleben matter, he points out. At stake was also “a threat to the political culture in Germany” because during waste transports people in the Wendland “live in a state of legal insecurity without parallel anywhere in the country”. He hoped, he said, that the judgment would improve the political culture during nuclear waste transports.
Responding to the supreme court ruling, the police directorate in Lüneburg said it would have no influence on future police work at nuclear waste transports to Gorleben. A statement says in recent years police detentions were shorter and kept local, rather than people being transported away. In 2004 one of the most modern detainee collection facilities had been built at Lüchow with space for legal process. A judge was always on duty.
“It has to be emphasised in this context,” says a police statement, “that all tactical, legal and logistical measures are constantly changing. But current court rulings usually relate to matters a considerable time in the past and frequently deal with events or general conditions that no longer correspond to current conditions.”
Make sense of that one! Are they saying, we got it wrong then, we’ve improved since? (Questions to Polizeidirektion Lüneburg, Pressestelle, Torsten Oestmann, Postfach, 21332 Lüneburg, phone: 04131/29-1011, mobile: 0175/1848408, fax: 04131/29-1005,
torsten.oestmann@polizei.niedersachsen.de, 
http://www.polizei.niedersachsen.de/dst/pdlg/pd_lueneburg/.)
Meanwhile the investigating committee of the Gorleben resistance (Ermitlungsausschuss Gorleben) has put out a call for witnesses of what it claims were police excesses during the waste transport last November.
“There was a number of excesses by male and female police during the last transport to Gorleben,” says a statement by the group. “Two especially serious cases were the violence perpetrated by Magdeburg officers against participants in a demonstration by school children and the actions against people who tried to chain themselves fast in Pommoisel.
“In the pupils’ demonstration several youngsters aged 12 to 14 were injured by police beating them with rubber truncheons, fist blows to the face and twisting of arms. In Pommoisel people were injured, some seriously, when eight officers simultaneously mistreated someone lying on the ground. The list could go on….”
The investigating committee continues: “We in the EA have the impression that at least some police had changed their tactics from encirclement to truncheon use. No large-scale encirclements and detentions were used, possibly because courts years later declared most of them to have been illegal. Were people this time to be intimidated by violence against them to stop them putting up direct resistance? If that was in fact the strategy, it didn’t work. There was plenty of resistance – but still not enough.
“The Gorleben investigation committee is now looking for people who themselves experienced, observed, photographed or filmed police excesses. We want to collect, document, publish and possibly make legal use of this information – it goes without saying only with the approval of those concerned and with strictest discretion. Anyone with useful information, please post it to EA Gorleben, c/o BI- Büro, Drawehnerstraße 3, 29439 Lüchow, or email it to ea-gorleben@nadir.org. We’re contactable by phone every Wednesday between 7.30 and 9 p.m., 05841-979430. Homepage: http://www.ea-gorleben.de.”
Lammers argued to the supreme court that her detention from 10:20 a.m. on 13 November 2001 until 8:23 a.m. the next day was tantamount to “surrogate punishment” and that two lower courts denied her the legal aid she was entitled to.
Police had seized her with hundreds of other demonstrators who refused to leave a sit-down road blockade by about 200 people in the village of Splietau despite police orders over loudspeakers to do so.
Martina Lammers says she still has nightmares about what happened more than four years later.
After hours of being “locked in” by a police cordon on an open field, she was locked up in a police vehicle for a long time in a cell of about 2 m² for four people. Left standing on a barracks square, the prisoners had to shout and knock for attention to be allowed to use a portable toilet. No hand washing was possible. Mobile phones, food and drinks were taken away from the detainees. What was handed out to them in the afternoon and at night was not enough or was spoilt.
Only at about 5 p.m. Lammers was allowed to phone the emergency attorney service. Only after 11 p.m. she was allowed to phone her family that someone else needed to take care of her children, then aged between four and ten. In the dusty air of a vehicle hall serving as a mass cell for 100 detainees, Lammers, who suffers from asthma, had difficulty breathing.
On top of this police abuse came the inability or unwillingness of a lower court judge on duty to rule quickly whether the detention was legal. Even after the event, two lower courts in Dannenberg and Lüneburg refused the nuclear opponent the legal protection she was entitled to.
The constitutional judges (case file 2 BvR 447/05 of 13. 12. 2005) see Lammers’ constitutional rights to freedom and entitlement to effective legal protection violated.
They emphasise that in principle freedom can only be withdrawn on the order of a judge. Only in exceptional cases could a subsequent decision suffice, but it had to be made “without delay”.
The state of Lower Saxony, in which Gorleben is located, denied any violation of constitutional rights but did note cynically in its argumentation that the organisation of the legal handling of the detentions “may not yet have been optimal”. The state has been ordered to pay all of Frau Lammers’ costs.
The next lower court in Lüneburg has to try the case again.
Martina Lammers and her attorney, Ulrike Donat of Hamburg, are satisfied with the ruling. The lawyer emphasised that the supreme judges again criticised the police practice or slowing everything down in detentions and ruled that keeping in detention must not be a surrogate punishment.
Demonstrators who are detained have to be presented to a judge without delay. Arresting judges did not have to wait until they had police files to hand but could make decisions after oral questioning.
Lammers says she is grateful for her lawyer’s tenacity. She adds that it’s probably due to the case going to the supreme court that the police and judiciary handling of nuclear opponents had changed greatly since 2001.
Donat rates the judgment as a success of the anti-nuclear movement and the persistent work of a group of lawyers calling themselves the Association of Republican Lawyers (Republikanischer Anwaltsverein).
“The ruling shows that the constitutional court attentively follows events in Gorleben. More constitutional suits on deprivation of freedom by police and the practice of banning demonstrations by declaring large areas off limits are in train in the court. The ruling of 13 December indicates that the constitutional court is going to handle this matter very thoroughly.”
Donat said the ruling came in the sensationally short time of half a year. “The high standing of the basic right to freedom and the procedural guarantees provided by the constitution require especially careful investigation by judges, which in this case was not carried out by the lower courts. Every delay in a judge’s decision demands an explanation and justification by the judge, or it is illegal and unconstitutional.”
The top court’s ruling crowns a number of trial successes in lower courts which have already led to changed police practices, points out the Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg, the umbrella organisation of the Gorleben resistance.
Instead of 700 to 1,400 detentions of several hours per waste transport, the number has dropped to between 50 and 80 detentions in collection points. Instead of deprivations of freedom of 20 to 24 hours, in the 2004 and 2005 transports the police used blockades and encirclements only in the last two to four hours before the transports.
A collection point at Neu Tramm with unsuitable rooms has been given up and replaced by a more modern one in Lüchow. Arrest judges and police have improved and speeded up procedures. Despite this, judges last year rejected two thirds of the police applications for approval of detentions.
Donat rates as a special success the supreme court’s clear emphasis of the importance of the involvement of judges and the duty of courts to deal with the legality of detentions even after they have happened.
Donat recalls: “Again and again prisoners complained of intolerable detention conditions, such as lacking toilets, hygiene and food, hours of being locked up in tight cells in prisoner vehicles and untenable placement of more than 100 people in former vehicle halls without furniture, water and toilets. Detention must not be allowed to be a ‘surrogate punishment’.”
(Bürgerinitiative: Francis Althoff 05843 986789, Ulrike Donat 040 3193971.)
The spokesperson of the Federal Constitutional Court, Dietlind Weinland, noted that this was “the first case of this kind” to be decided by it. She listed six more similar cases being handled, four of them constitutional complaints by nuclear opponents against police detentions in 2001 and two because of a “police encirclement” in 2002.
Nuclear opponents in the Wendland, as the Gorleben area is called, feel vindicated by the ruling. “The mass detentions of nuclear opponents during previous transports were an intolerable situation,” said Jens Magerl, in Dannenberg, speaking for Initiative Widersetzen.
Magerl said he’s “very happy” about the ruling. The waste transports are no local Gorleben matter, he points out. At stake was also “a threat to the political culture in Germany” because during waste transports people in the Wendland “live in a state of legal insecurity without parallel anywhere in the country”. He hoped, he said, that the judgment would improve the political culture during nuclear waste transports.
Responding to the supreme court ruling, the police directorate in Lüneburg said it would have no influence on future police work at nuclear waste transports to Gorleben. A statement says in recent years police detentions were shorter and kept local, rather than people being transported away. In 2004 one of the most modern detainee collection facilities had been built at Lüchow with space for legal process. A judge was always on duty.
“It has to be emphasised in this context,” says a police statement, “that all tactical, legal and logistical measures are constantly changing. But current court rulings usually relate to matters a considerable time in the past and frequently deal with events or general conditions that no longer correspond to current conditions.”
Make sense of that one! Are they saying, we got it wrong then, we’ve improved since? (Questions to Polizeidirektion Lüneburg, Pressestelle, Torsten Oestmann, Postfach, 21332 Lüneburg, phone: 04131/29-1011, mobile: 0175/1848408, fax: 04131/29-1005,
torsten.oestmann@polizei.niedersachsen.de, http://www.polizei.niedersachsen.de/dst/pdlg/pd_lueneburg/.) Meanwhile the investigating committee of the Gorleben resistance (Ermitlungsausschuss Gorleben) has put out a call for witnesses of what it claims were police excesses during the waste transport last November.
“There was a number of excesses by male and female police during the last transport to Gorleben,” says a statement by the group. “Two especially serious cases were the violence perpetrated by Magdeburg officers against participants in a demonstration by school children and the actions against people who tried to chain themselves fast in Pommoisel.
“In the pupils’ demonstration several youngsters aged 12 to 14 were injured by police beating them with rubber truncheons, fist blows to the face and twisting of arms. In Pommoisel people were injured, some seriously, when eight officers simultaneously mistreated someone lying on the ground. The list could go on….”
The investigating committee continues: “We in the EA have the impression that at least some police had changed their tactics from encirclement to truncheon use. No large-scale encirclements and detentions were used, possibly because courts years later declared most of them to have been illegal. Were people this time to be intimidated by violence against them to stop them putting up direct resistance? If that was in fact the strategy, it didn’t work. There was plenty of resistance – but still not enough.
“The Gorleben investigation committee is now looking for people who themselves experienced, observed, photographed or filmed police excesses. We want to collect, document, publish and possibly make legal use of this information – it goes without saying only with the approval of those concerned and with strictest discretion. Anyone with useful information, please post it to EA Gorleben, c/o BI- Büro, Drawehnerstraße 3, 29439 Lüchow, or email it to
ea-gorleben@nadir.org. We’re contactable by phone every Wednesday between 7.30 and 9 p.m., 05841-979430. Homepage: http://www.ea-gorleben.de.”
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Ergänzungen
pressererklärung bverfg
lies einfach die presseerklärung des bundesverfassungsgerichts
Bundesverfassungsgericht - Pressestelle -
Pressemitteilung Nr. 2/2006 vom 5. Januar 20065
Zum Beschluss vom 13. Dezember 2005 – 2 BvR 447/05 –
Erfolgreiche Verfassungsbeschwerde gegen
freiheitsentziehende Maßnahmen nach Castor-Sitzblockade
Die Beschwerdeführerin nahm im November 2001 im Zusammenhang mit einem
Castor-Transport mit rund 200 Personen an einer Straßensitzblockade
teil. Als sie einem Platzverweis nicht nachkam, nahm die Polizei sie von
10.20 Uhr bis 8.23 Uhr des darauf folgenden Tages in Gewahrsam, ohne
dass sich während dieser Zeit ein Richter mit der Sache befasst hatte.
Ihre hiergegen gerichtete Verfassungsbeschwerde hatte Erfolg. Die 2.
Kammer des Zweiten Senats stellte fest, dass die angegriffenen
Beschlüsse des Amtsgerichts und des Landgerichts, die die nachträglichen
Anträge der Beschwerdeführerin auf Feststellung der Rechtswidrigkeit der
Freiheitsentziehung sowie der Art und Weise ihrer Durchführung
zurückgewiesen hatten, die Beschwerdeführerin in ihrem
Freiheitsgrundrecht sowie ihrem Recht auf effektiven Rechtsschutz
verletzten. Die Gerichte hätten den entscheidungserheblichen Sachverhalt
nicht hinreichend aufgeklärt. Die Sache wurde zur erneuten Entscheidung
an das Landgericht zurückverwiesen.
Der Entscheidung liegen im Wesentlichen folgende Erwägungen zu Grunde:
1. Eine Freiheitsentziehung erfordert grundsätzlich eine vorherige
richterliche Anordnung. Eine nachträgliche richterliche Entscheidung
genügt nur in Ausnahmefällen. In einem solchen Fall ist die richterliche
Entscheidung unverzüglich nachzuholen. Das Gebot der Unverzüglichkeit
verpflichtet zum einen die Polizei, eine richterliche Entscheidung
unverzüglich herbeizuführen. Zum anderen muss auch die weitere
Sachbehandlung durch den Richter dem Gebot der Unverzüglichkeit
entsprechen. Darüber hinaus ist es unverzichtbare Voraussetzung
rechtsstaatlichen Verfahrens, dass Entscheidungen, die den Entzug der
persönlichen Freiheit betreffen, auf zureichender richterlicher
Sachaufklärung beruhen.
Diesen Anforderungen werden die angegriffenen Beschlüsse nicht gerecht.
Zum einen haben die Gerichte den zeitlichen Ablauf des polizeilichen
Vorgehens im Rahmen der Gewahrsamsnahme nicht analysiert. Hierzu hätte
Veranlassung bestanden, weil Zeiträume von mehreren Stunden im Ablauf
der Gewahrsamnahme ungeklärt sind. Die Beschwerdeführerin wurde um 10.20
Uhr in Gewahrsam genommen, um 13.19 Uhr traf das Transportfahrzeug in
der Gefangenensammelstelle ein. Ein – erst um 21:01 Uhr erstellter –
Datenerfassungsbogen nennt als Aufnahmezeit hinsichtlich der
Beschwerdeführerin 16:25 Uhr. Der Antrag der Bezirksregierung auf
richterliche Entscheidung über die Zulässigkeit der
freiheitsbeschränkenden Maßnahme datiert zwar noch vom selben Tag. Aus
einer Mitteilung des Amtsgerichts ergibt sich aber, dass dieser erst am
nächsten Tag bei Gericht eingegangen ist, ohne dass die genaue Uhrzeit
ermittelt werden konnte. Die Ausführungen der Fachgerichte zu diesem
zeitlichen Ablauf innerhalb der Gefangenensammelstelle beschränken sich
auf allgemeine blankettartige Begründungen, die nicht auf den konkreten
Fall eingehen. Um der hohen Bedeutung des Richtervorbehalts als
Sicherung gegen unberechtigte Freiheitsentziehungen gerecht zu werden,
hätte das Amtsgericht die konkreten Umstände der eingetretenen
Verzögerungen, die das unverzügliche Anhängigmachen des Antrags auf
Zulässigkeit und Fortdauer der Gewahrsamnahme verhindert haben,
aufklären müssen.
Ferner gibt die Art und Weise der Durchführung des richterlichen
Bereitschaftsdienstes Anlass zu verfassungsrechtlichen Beanstandungen.
Der richterliche Bereitschaftsdienst konnte sich nicht auf die Tageszeit
beschränken, sondern musste auch eine Regelung für die Nachtzeit
beinhalten, da aufgrund der zu erwartenden Massendemonstrationen mit
einer Vielzahl von Ingewahrsamnahmen gerechnet werden musste, die nicht
sämtlich zur Tageszeit sachgerecht bewältigt werden konnten.
2. Die angegriffenen Entscheidungen verletzen die Beschwerdeführerin
ferner in ihrem Recht auf effektiven Rechtsschutz. Die
Beschwerdeführerin hat gerügt, dass die Art und Weise des Vollzuges des
Gewahrsams einer Ersatzbestrafung gleich gekommen sei. Diesem Vorbringen
ist immanent, dass bessere Bedingungen des Vollzugs durch eine
sachgerechte Planung, eine bessere Organisation und Koordinierung wie
auch durch eine anderweitige Unterbringung möglich gewesen seien. Den
damit von der Beschwerdeführerin in tatsächlicher Hinsicht aufgeworfenen
Fragen sind die Gerichte nicht nachgegangen. Ihnen hätte es oblegen, die
Gründe für die Auswahl des Standorts der Gefangenensammelstelle, ihre
Kapazitätsgestaltung und die Frage einer zureichenden Ausstattung zu
ermitteln und unter Berücksichtigung der behördlicherseits geltend
gemachten Belange sowie behördlicher Prognose- und Ermessensspielräume
zu würdigen.
und wenn du es genauer wissen willst, das urteil selbst:
Deutsche Berichte
Mehr deutsche Berichte dazu
“A lot more police brutality”
“One of our fundamental tasks is to support people forced to deal with judicial repression. We assume that such judgments by the Federal Constitutional Court will change nothing in the actual [nuclear] transportation practice. It has often been apparent that the atomic programme and especially the eye of the needle, the transports, cannot be enforced with the means of a state ruled by law. They will always develop some tactic or other to get around this rule of law. Thus the last transport [in November 2005] showed that they did respond to the many judgments that ruled detention measures illegal: There were no encirclements, “only” 70 detentions (of which two thirds were again likely to have been illegal) and the procedures in the prisoner holding facility were much more efficient. In contrast to previous ones, this was a transport that saw a lot more police brutality; some people were seriously injured and pepper spray was used more frequently. Two cases are still pending in the Federal Constitutional Court challenging the procedure for sweeping declarations of off-limits. Should the judges rule in our favour, the determination would be relevant nationally because such general bans are increasingly being declared at big events throughout the country.”
"Mehr Polizei-Brutalität"
rechtswidrig erklärten, schon reagierten: Es gab keine Kessel, "nur" 70
Ingewahrsamnahmen (wovon vermutlich wieder 2/3 rechtswidrig waren) und
die Abläufe in der Gefangenensammelstelle waren sehr gestrafft. Dafür
war dies ein Transport, bei dem im Gegensatz zu den letzten sehr viel
mehr Polizei-Brutalität zu verzeichnen war; es gab einige Schwerverletzte und z.B. vermehrt Pfefferspray-Einsätze. Beim BVG sind noch zwei Beschwerden anhängig, die das Verfahren um die Allgemeinverfügung beklagt. Sollten die Richter in unserem Sinne entscheiden, hätte dieses Urteil bundesweite Relevanz, da ja Allgemeinverfügungen vermehrt in der ganzen BRD bei Großereignissen eingesetzt werden.
Beiträge die keine inhaltliche Ergänzung darstellen
?? — dssb