Administration of justice | The Bar Association sharply criticized reports about Ahmed Abed

Ahmed Abed in the administrative court. The lawyer is also a left-wing politician. Photo: dpa/Markus Lenhardt "Equating lawyer and client undermines the right to defense and endangers the independent administration of justice," said René Haug, lawyer and vice president of the Federal Bar Association (BRAK), on Wednesday. The German lawyers' advocacy group has spoken out with an unusually harsh press criticism. The reason is press reports from “Spiegel”, “BZ” and “Bild”, in which the legal work of the left-wing politician Ahmed Abed was scandalized.

Abed, who is his party's top candidate for the office of district mayor in the Berlin district of Neukölln, represented Ibrahim Ibrahim in an administrative law procedure, according to a report in "Spiegel". This report, in turn, was picked up by the two newspapers from the Springer empire. Ibrahim is repeatedly described as a “terrorist sympathizer.” He is said to be close to the Marxist-Leninist Palestinian PFLP, which is listed as a terrorist organization by both the EU and the USA. Ibrahim himself spoke in a press release of “general suspicion” against him. “I am committed to freedom, self-determination, the end of the Israeli occupation and the right of return of Palestinian refugees peacefully and within the framework of applicable laws,” said Ibrahim.

The scandalous trial itself, which "nd" reported on, was about police bans on demonstrations in memory of the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians known as the "Nakba" (Arabic for "catastrophe") when the state of Israel was founded in 1948. This event is commemorated every year on May 15th. A demonstration on this occasion escalated in 2021. In the following two years, the police banned all events related to Remembrance Day. The court confirmed the bans, but called them “borderline legal cases.”

The BRAK reports that it is observing with concern that “in recent years, conclusions have been and are repeatedly being drawn from the subject of legal advice and representation about the advising colleagues themselves.” Independent legal advice and representation is an indispensable part of the rule of law. »Every person has the right to be advised and represented by a lawyer in legal proceedings – regardless of how their position is viewed politically, morally or socially.«

»Professional representation in court is not a political commitment, but our job. We defend the perpetrator, not the crime.”

“We expect factual reporting and differentiated discourse from the media, politicians and the public,” Haug is quoted as saying. A distinction must be made between the professional role as a defense attorney or representative and an actual political, personal or ideological proximity to the client. »Professional representation in court is not a political commitment, but our job. We defend the perpetrator, not the crime,” says Haug.

The Republican Lawyers' Association (RAV), which sees itself as part of the civil rights movement, also expresses its solidarity with Abed. He is “explicitly politically discredited for carrying out his legal work.” As a result of the reporting, Abed was confronted with press inquiries that he was unable to answer due to his legal duty of confidentiality. He was also exposed to a large number of personal hate messages as a result of the reporting. “Threats, intimidation and identifying, degrading reporting on lawyers as free organs of the administration of justice represent an attack on the constitutional state itself, which cannot be justified by anything,” said the RAV.

According to the RAV, the fact that a lawyer comes under pressure to justify himself because of taking on a mandate does not just affect a single colleague. "We fear a deterrent effect on the entire legal profession: the willingness to take on socially controversial mandates must not be undermined by fear of personal stigmatization."

Ahmed Abed is not the only left-wing politician who has been targeted by the press because of his work as a lawyer. Back in September, the tabloid “BZ” tried to create a scandal because a left-wing politician elected to the Lichtenberg district council had represented one of the defendants as a lawyer in the trial surrounding the theft of jewels in the Green Vault in Dresden.

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