CASE OF FRÖBRICH v. GERMANY
No violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Civil proceedings;Article 6-1 - Public hearing)
André Potocki;Angelika Nußberger;Carlo Ranzoni;Erik Møse;Mārtiņš Mits;Síofra O’Leary
5. The applicant was born in 1934 and lives in Strausberg. Before the reunification of Germany he lived in the former GDR, serving in the police force from 1952 to 1954. 6. On 13 June 1958, the Frankfurt (Oder) District Court convicted the applicant of “criminal assault against the local bodies of the State” (“verbrecherischer Angriff gegen die örtlichen Organe der Staatsmacht”) after he had attacked a member of the GDR parliament of the ruling Socialist Unity Party. He was sentenced to one year and eight months’ imprisonment and served 14 months in prison. 7. On 8 February 1994 the Frankfurt (Oder) Regional Court annulled the 1958 judgment for its incompatibility with the principles of the rule of law and rehabilitated the applicant pursuant to Section 1 § 1 of the Criminal Rehabilitation Act (Gesetz über die Rehabilitierung und Entschädigung von Opfern rechtsstaatswidriger Strafverfolgungsmaßnahmen im Beitrittsgebiet Strafrechtliches Rehabilitierungsgesetz) designed to rehabilitate and compensate prisoners of the GDR regime for deprivation of their liberty incompatible with the principles of the rule of law. 8. On 25 April 1994 the applicant lodged an application for compensation under the Criminal Rehabilitation Act. The application form contained instructions that, according to Section 16 § 2 of the Act (see Relevant domestic law and practice, paragraphs 23 and 24 below), such compensation could not be granted to a person who had offended against the principles of humanity and the rule of law. The applicant declared on the questionnaire that he had never acted in disregard of these principles and never worked for the former GDR’s Ministry of State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit). On 13 February 1995 the President of the Frankfurt (Oder) Regional Court, acting as the competent authority, awarded him compensation of 8,250 German marks, equivalent to about 4,218 euros (EUR), pursuant to Section 17 in conjunction with Section 16 §§ 1 and 3 of the Criminal Rehabilitation Act. 9. On 7 August 2007, after an amendment of the Act, the applicant also applied for a special, incomerelated pension which benefits former victims of imprisonment (monatliche besondere Zuwendung für Haftopfer). He again confirmed that he had never offended against the principles of humanity and the rule of law and never worked for the former GDR’s Ministry of State Security. On 14 November 2007 he was granted a special monthly pension of EUR 250 pursuant to Section 17a of the Criminal Rehabilitation Act, with the reservation that information held by the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR (“the Federal Commissioner”) must not contradict the applicant’s statements. A respective request for information was submitted on 19 November 2007. 10. On 25 February 2008 the Federal Commissioner informed the President of the Regional Court that the applicant, between 22 September 1953 and 25 November 1954, had been a secret informant of the Ministry of State Security while he was a member of the police force. This information was based on a number of documents, including 32 handwritten reports allegedly drafted by the applicant and a declaration to commit to serve as a secret informant to the state security service. 11. On 18 February 2009 the President of the Regional Court, relying on Section 48 §§ 1 and 2, third sentence, no. 2 of the Brandenburg Administrative Procedure Act (Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz für das Land Brandenburg), withdrew the decisions granting compensation and a special pension and at the same time ordered the applicant to reimburse the amounts already received pursuant to Section 49a of the same Act. The President considered that the decisions had been unlawful from the beginning as the prerequisites for either entitlement had never been met and that the applicant could not legitimately rely on these decisions being maintained, as he had obtained them by giving information that was substantially incorrect. Referring to Section 16 § 2 of the Criminal Rehabilitation Act, he observed that the applicant, contrary to the statements in his applications, had worked as a secret informant for the Ministry of State Security and had produced at least five reports for the Ministry in which he put at real risk the persons on whom he had informed. 12. On 9 March 2009 the applicant applied for judicial review of that decision and asked to be heard in person. He claimed that the information contained in the documents of the Federal Commissioner was incomplete and not accurate. The fact that at the time of recruitment he was only 19 years old and had been severely traumatised when fleeing his home town in Silesia in 1945 and experiencing the bombing of Dresden on 13 February 1945, followed by several months of homelessness after the war had ended, also had to be taken into account. His father had returned, incapacitated for work, from Soviet captivity only in 1947 or 1948. While serving in the police forces he had not been aware of working for other government agencies. The written commitment to the state security service might have been dictated to him when he was under the influence of alcohol but he had no memory of it whatsoever. In any case, he ruled out that the wording was his own and that he had known that the reports were to be used by the state security service. 13. On 16 February 2010 the Frankfurt (Oder) Regional Court, sitting as a chamber of three judges, dismissed the applicant’s request for judicial review, finding that his work as a secret informant for the Ministry of State Security was of such nature, scope and duration that it was reprehensible enough to justify ruling out the applicant’s eligibility for compensation payments pursuant to Section 16 § 2 of the Criminal Rehabilitation Act. Acknowledging that in a dictatorship which lasted for decades, minor involvement with the regime was frequent, it considered that the applicant’s position as a secret informant of the state security service did not itself suffice to trigger the application of that provision. However, compensation provided under the Act was intended to benefit innocent victims only, but not those who had also participated in offences contrary to the principles of humanity and which were harmful to others or at least put them at risk. This could be assumed when a secret informant voluntarily reported on others and the reports could potentially cause persecution by the state security service. In that case compensation payments were ruled out, no matter how great the offender’s own suffering had been. The courts were not to compare the extent of suffering involved. 14. The Regional Court observed that the applicant had penned a handwritten commitment to serve the state security service after he had already reported twice on others. Thus the applicant’s submission that he had believed that he was reporting to police officers and not to the state security service was, in the light of that declaration, not credible (“nicht glaubhaft”). Furthermore, the five reports mentioned in the decision of the President of the Regional Court, as well as two more reports were capable of putting in danger the persons informed on. The applicant mainly reported on their contacts with West Germany and West Berlin. An intention to leave the former GDR without permission, in particular, could have led to severe criminal persecution of the persons involved. The reports were not meaningless but contained valuable information for the state security service. The applicant’s claim that some reports were unknown to him and factually incorrect and that he did not recognise the names of the superior officers was irrelevant to the Regional Court’s decision. 15. The Regional Court also pointed out that it was unnecessary to hear the applicant in person. His personality at the time and the circumstances of his recruitment would have been relevant only if there were indications that the applicant acted under insupportable pressure. However, there were no such indications and the applicant had made no claims in this regard. He had reported twice on others, even before being recruited by the state security service. Further, the court could not see a connection between the applicant’s experiences relating to the impact of war and the post-war period on him and his psychological strain at the time of recruitment on the one hand and his willingness to cooperate with the state security service on the other hand. 16. On 24 August 2010 the Brandenburg Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant’s appeal, endorsing the Regional Court’s reasons. 17. On 28 October 2010 the Federal Constitutional Court declined to consider the applicant’s constitutional complaint without providing reasons (2 BvR 2329/10).