Yesterday, November 2nd, 2016, two lawsuits (case numbers: 6 K 196/15 and 6 K 3364/14) against the Federal Police were heard before the Dresden Administrative Court (VG). The plaintiffs sought a declaration that checks on people based solely on their skin color (racial profiling) were illegal.
The plaintiff from the case under case number 6 K 196/15, a 45-year-old director and sworn court interpreter, was on his way back to Leipzig from a court hearing in Erfurt on March 31, 2014.
According to his assessment, he was checked at Erfurt train station by two federal police officers simply because of his dark skin color. The federal police, on the other hand, claimed that the plaintiff had “behaved conspicuously” and that his skin color had played no role in the check. The hearing before the VG now revealed that the responsible Federal Police Directorate in Pirna had withheld procedurally relevant written statements from the officers and their superiors from the court until the hearing.
One of the officials also admitted that he had privately received an official statement from the other official before making his own statements. The proceedings ultimately ended in a scandal when one of the officers stated that, together with the other controlling officer, they had been prepared by a legal advisor from the Pirna Federal Police Directorate for the taking of evidence in this proceedings. He himself had been ordered from Bayreuth to Pirna for this purpose. The court made no secret of its lack of understanding of such procedural behavior and the impact on the officers' credibility and ended the taking of evidence prematurely with the point that the legality of the police action could no longer be determined based on the officers' statements under these circumstances.
“ It is already difficult to prove in court that police officers carry out checks on trains and at stations based on skin color. The fact that the officials are now being prepared for their witness statements in terms of content and, if necessary, tactics no longer has anything to do with proper procedural behavior by a federal authority that is bound by law and order. “, lawyer Sven Adam, who represents the plaintiff, comments on the evidence. The plaintiff himself was also annoyed by the way the witness hearing went: “ The repeated racist controls are bad and defamatory. But denying false statements in racial profiling proceedings would be a scandal .
A judgment that will probably now justify the lawsuit will be served on the parties in the written procedure.
In the further proceedings on the case number 6 K 3364/14, the control of a 31-year-old student with dark skin on September 7th, 2014 on a train from Erfurt to Würzburg was negotiated.
Here, too, the parties' representations about the control situation and the reason for the control contradicted each other to such an extent that the court suspended the proceedings in order to be able to call further witnesses. The plaintiff stated that the officers had asked the plaintiff directly about his personal details, while the officers only wanted to ask him whether he could perhaps say anything helpful for the work of the Federal Police.
Another hearing will now have to take place before the VG Dresden on the question of the legality of the personal identification. After the check, the young man was reported by the police officers for insults because he was said to have described the check as racist and xenophobic. The Arnstadt District Court acquitted him on legal and factual grounds in its judgment of May 28, 2015 (ref.: 820 Js 36838/14 4 Cs).
