Anyone who stalks politicians in the analog or digital world and tries to influence them must be severely punished. The Federal Council approved the corresponding draft law on Friday on the initiative of Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein. According to their own statements, the federal states want to take action primarily against “political stalking”. The law is intended to protect officials and elected officials – including at the local level – from the effects of threatening interference in their private lives. This is also intended to better cover cases that were previously difficult to prosecute, such as when mayors are repeatedly threatened and attacked through criminal law.
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the origin of Legislative proposals The Criminal Code (StGB) has a new paragraph 106a, entitled “Influencing officials and elected officials”. It is very broad and sometimes vague. Anyone who “unauthorizedly and insignificantly harms the life of an elected person or a person appointed by the authorities” so that they want to give up their powers, their office or their mandate or no longer want to exercise them can face a fine or imprisonment for up to three years.
The Bundeswehr is expanding its own satellite network and turning down StarlinkIn particularly serious cases, prison sentences ranging from three months to five years will be envisaged, making it easier for the police to use tool kits for wiretapping in their investigations. In this sense, the punishment should generally be harsher if political stalking is accompanied by physical assault or is directed against people under the age of 21.
Increasing penalties for using data to pursue politics
According to the proposal, the proposed criminal offence is subject to additional conditions. It is intended to catch offenders who seek physical proximity to officials and elected officials or any of their relatives or anyone close to them. This also includes access to the private apartments of those affected. Anyone who attempts to establish private contact with the groups mentioned above, for example via telephone, chat messages, emails or third parties, should also be punished. It should also be possible to punish offenders who improperly place orders for goods or services in the name of elected officials.
The Federal Council also refers to acts under the hacker paragraphs, which relate to the private data of officials and elected officials as well as relatives or close people. According to these, preparation for a crime is forbidden – for example creating, obtaining, selling, transferring, distributing or making accessible passwords or data accesses with suitable computer programs. This also applies to unauthorized access to particularly protected data by overcoming security precautions. If private information obtained in this way is used for political pursuits, there is now a risk of increased punishment.
According to the draft, Section 241 of the Criminal Code also covers threats against sexual self-determination, bodily integrity, personal liberty or anything of vital value, as well as other offences.
Comparable acts should be included
The countries also want to criminalise offenders who commit “comparable and equally serious acts” with the activities mentioned above. The emphasis here is likely to be on so-called doxing, i.e. the collection and subsequent publication of personal data from officials and elected officials, in this case with malicious intentions. In 2019, the massive publication of the private data of German politicians, journalists, presenters, actors, singers and YouTubers by the Twitter user “0rbit” worried not only those affected. The openness of the wording of the proposed Article on this point leaves a lot of scope overall.
The Federal Council also wants to extend two existing criminal offences that currently only protect constitutional bodies and their members at the federal and state levels from coercion. In the future these should also protect people at the local and European level. The aim is to underline the great importance of decisions in local councils and European law for a democratic constitutional state. In particularly serious cases, the federal states want to introduce prison terms ranging from twelve months to ten years. Otherwise you can be sentenced to a prison term of three months to five years. According to the initiative, attempts at coercion are also punishable. The State Chamber will now present the draft to the Bundestag, which will then decide on it. There is no time limit for this. The federal government may comment in advance.
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