Berlin Left Party fails with motion: Hagel doesn't have to be factual

dpa | After the election victory of the Berlin Left, the Baden-Württemberg Interior Minister Manuel Hagel offered the Berlin police officers to move to the southwest and called the Left's top candidate a “left-wing clan mayor”. An application by the Left to stop making statements against the CDU politician has now been rejected by the Stuttgart Administrative Court.

A statement from the court states that Hagel's statements were not official statements in his role as Interior Minister, which are subject to the requirement of objectivity and neutrality. Rather, the statements are general political and fall within the scope of freedom of expression.

It was said that Hagel did not comment in his role as Interior Minister, but as a party politician. The office of the Minister of the Interior does not rule out the possibility of commenting as a specialist politician on police-related or other domestic policy issues. The mere reference to the police in general is not enough to establish a specific official connection.

An appeal against the decision can be lodged with the Baden-Württemberg Administrative Court within two weeks of its announcement.

After the left's electoral success in the capital, Hagel had offered Berlin police officers to move to the southwest - and associated the top candidate Elif Eralp with criminal clans: "The Berlin police are too good for a left-wing clan mayor who wants to take away their resources and powers. Here in Baden-Württemberg we know what we have in our police officers," he said.

After Hagel's comments on the Berlin Left, a law firm sent the CDU politician a so-called cease and desist declaration. Hagel should therefore undertake not to repeat certain statements in his role as Interior Minister. If that doesn't happen, the Left reserves the right to take further legal action. The Interior Minister will not sign this letter, people close to Hagel told the dpa.

Because he made these statements in his role as Interior Minister, he violated the right to equal opportunities in political competition, the lawyer's letter says. State organs are also obliged to maintain neutrality in the political competition between parties. The Berlin regional association is also taking action against other politicians who have accused the party of anti-Semitism and proximity to criminal clans via social media.

The Left was recently successful with its action against Federal Economics Minister Katherina Reiche (CDU). The Federal Constitutional Court decided after an urgent application from the Left that the minister first had to remove a video published on her ministry's website.

It was about a video on the ministry's Instagram account with excerpts from a speech on September 23rd - a few days after the Left's election victory in Berlin. Reiche warned that it was dangerous for the capital and Germany as an investment location that a party was talking about expropriation and writing this into its program and that “anti-Semitism is openly living out, which is frightening the Jews in this city.”

The Left had asked the minister through a lawyer to remove the video by September 29th. However, that didn't happen. The party then turned to the Federal Constitutional Court with a lawsuit and an urgent application.