Ex-Bild boss Julian Reichelt: Constitutional criticism towards ban ruling | EUROtoday

DThe former editor-in-chief of the “Bild” newspaper Julian Reichelt has filed a constitutional criticism towards a call by the Berlin Court of Appeal. The courtroom had prohibited him from making any vital statements in regards to the federal authorities’s growth help for Afghanistan (ref. 10 W 184/23). Reichelt sees this as violating his basic proper to freedom of expression.

Reichelt’s lawyer Joachim Nikolaus Steinhöfel explains within the constitutional criticism that the Chamber Court violated his consumer’s proper to freedom of expression in two methods: by falsely figuring out an expression of opinion as a press release of reality and by assuming that Reichelt’s assertion constituted a “serious impairment of the functionality” of a authorized entity public legislation as a result of it endangers the general public’s belief within the work of the authority. What is supposed is that Reichelt’s assertion “Germany paid 370 million euros (!!!) in development aid to the Taliban (!!!!!!) in the last two years” was meant to extend residents’ belief within the work of Federal Development Aid Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) or their ministry.

The core of freedom of expression, the constitutional criticism says, consists of precisely what the Berlin Court of Appeal has banned: criticism of the federal government. Public criticism of the federal government – ​​“criticism of power” – is a primary part of free journalism. In order to assist this place, the constitutional criticism refers to quite a few media experiences – from newspapers, private and non-private broadcasters – and to assessments by NGOs and specialists with an analogous tenor, which solely don’t formulate the content material of the courtroom dispute as pointedly as Reichelt did : the query is whether or not the federal authorities just isn’t a minimum of not directly supporting the Taliban regime by means of its growth help for Afghanistan, even when the cash doesn’t go on to the Islamists.

Reichelt’s clear evaluation was accompanied by a hyperlink that described the precise allocation of growth funds. The Berlin Regional Court discovered this interplay to be permissible within the first occasion and rejected the appliance for an interim injunction that Federal Development Aid Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) had filed towards Reichelt (ref. 27 O 410/23). The Berlin Court of Appeal granted the appliance within the second occasion.