The German traffic light coalition has launched plans to create the new position of police commissioner to supervise federal police authorities. But police unions have sounded the alarm, saying the new position would mean “an undermining of the separation of powers being transformed from a rhetorical possibility into a real threat”
According to the proposed law, seen by Apollo News, the police commissioner would “uncover and investigate structural deficiencies and maldevelopment” within the federal police and federal criminal police. The commissioner’s task would be to initiate investigations based on reports from citizens and police force employees—in the second case, an investigation would be mandatory—and prepare reports if a case is deemed particularly significant.
Manuel Ostermann, deputy federal chairman of the German Police Union of the Federal Police (DPoIG BPOL) criticized the plans in an interview, saying that “Due to the depth of intervention, the police commissioner is equivalent to a parliamentary control body.” Ostermann said it is therefore his firm conviction that the law establishing the position “must be enshrined in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany”.
He also said that the position, in combination with the new Federal Disciplinary Act—intended to make it easier to remove ‘extremists’ from civil service—“opens the door to political arbitrariness.”
The Federal Disciplinary Act was updated in 2023 to avoid lengthy legal proceedings for removing civil servants from office. An explanation for the proposed amended law said:
Instead of having to bring disciplinary action before the administrative court, the disciplinary authorities should in future impose all disciplinary measures, including demotion, removal from civil service status and withdrawal of pension, through disciplinary orders
Initially presented by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser as a way to “quickly” remove civil servants who want to “overthrow the basic democratic order” after the 2022 arrests of 25 members of the Reichsbürger movement, the law today appears in a different light, given that the same exact accusation—having ambitions to “overthrow the basic democratic order”—has recently been leveled against the surging antiglobalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, despite the party’s repeated assurances that it “firmly stands on the ground of the liberal-democratic basic order.”
There are red lines in a constitutional state, union boss Ostermann said, “and for good reasons. … This red line is being crossed here, and completely without justification.”
The government has already selected a candidate for the job, Apollo News reports: Bundestag MP and former police officer Uli Grötsch, who on his website lists as political priorities “social justice” and “fight against right-wing extremism.”
