Last generation and the coalition agreement: what preventive detention means

Analyse

“Get out!”, “Let me through!” or “I’ll smash you!”, are just a few examples of statements being hurled at climate protesters. Mostly by angry drivers honking their horns at crowded intersections in the middle of the big city.

Often followed by physical violence. Rough removal from the street is the most harmless. Slaps in the face are increasingly commonplace in Last Generation sit-ins.

Many drivers get so angry that they take vigilante justice.Image: dpa / Jonas Walzberg

Since January 2022, the climate protest movement Last Generation has been the talk of the town. They currently want to paralyze the federal capital indefinitely. Above all, their actions, such as throwing food at famous paintings in museums or, as recently happened on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm, spraying paint on luxury boutiques, generated attention.

For this, supporters of the protest movement are regularly taken into police custody. Also preventive. So before anything even happened.

Around 3000 criminal investigations against climate activists

The so-called preventive detention is also called preventive detention. This police measure denotes a power of the police to take people into custody in order to prevent an administrative offense which is of considerable importance to the general public. Like sticking to the streets like the last generation does.

In order to enforce this, a judicial decision must first be obtained from the competent criminal court. The police officers must justify their recommendation of preventive detention before the criminal court.

From January 24th of last year to April 21st, the Berlin police counted 3008 criminal investigations against climate activists at the request of watson. The most frequent reports were therefore due to coercion in road traffic or resistance to law enforcement officers. This also includes the mere sticking on the street, said a spokeswoman.

However, the Berlin police do not keep statistics on how many climate activists were taken into preventive detention during this period. In connection with the sit-ins, the Berlin police have so far counted one case in the current year.

Both the measures taken by climate activists, especially of the last generation, and how to deal with the climate protests are currently the subject of much discussion. Also political. While some call for harsher penalties, others urge common sense.

Berlin wants to give the police more leeway

In Berlin in particular, there are different views on how to deal with the climate protests and the corresponding penalties.

After both the Federal election 2021 when the parliamentary elections in Berlin went wrong, the latter has already been repeated. The result: Mayor Franziska Giffey had to hand her post to Kai Wegner from the CDU hand over. The SPD and the CDU agreed a few days ago on a new coalition agreement. Among other things, it provides for an expansion of preventive detention.

From the previous 48 hours to five days.

But even the police disagree. Instead, the police union (GdP) demands harmonization of the different police laws of the federal states in relation to the German Press Agency. But not a tightening of the measures.

In Hamburg too, climate activists are being removed from the streets, some of them by force.Image: dpa / Jonas Walzberg

The management of the German Police Union (DPoIG), on the other hand, wants tougher penalties. The “Deutschlandfunk” quotes the union as saying that the “high demand on the police and other emergency services” is irresponsible and is damaging to internal security.

The CDU takes the same side. Berlin MP Alexander Herrmann told RBB: “In the end, it’s criminals who are taking our city hostage.” He calls for a longer preventive detention. “To deter, to prevent a recurrence”. CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja even called the last generation “extremists” on Deutschlandfunk.

Green politician Vasili Franco, on the other hand, advises the RBB to “keep calm”. And the left also emphasizes in the form of Berlin MP Sebastian Schlüsselburg that sit-ins are also covered by freedom of assembly.

In Bavaria, the regulation goes furthest

In Bavaria, however, the toughest police task law applies: there, preventive detention is even possible for up to 30 days in exceptional cases. Plus extension to two months. Most recently, this regulation provided a lot of potential for discussion when twelve members of the last generation were imprisoned for a month in autumn 2022 without a criminal trial. In some cases, the penalty was lifted after 23 days.

The last generation is also blocking the streets in Munich.Bild: IMAGO/aal.photo

The so-called Police Tasks Act in Bavaria was tightened in 2017 and, among other things, changed the upper limit of 14 days for preventive detention to 30 days. A commission of experts was set up for this purpose. From their final report It was already clear at the time that the extension of preventive detention in Bavaria was controversial. “From the area of ​​legal knowledge” it was said, for example, that it was viewed critically “that the person concerned was not assigned a lawyer”.

But preventive detention is also possible in other federal states. In North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg, for example, the duration is 14 days, with the option of extending it by another 14 days.

Recently, Rainer Wendt, head of the DPoIG, even called for Berlin to follow the controversial Bavarian model. If he had his way, climate activists nationwide should be able to be locked up preventively for up to 30 days.

Application of preventive detention is criticized

In an interview with Deutschlandfunk Kultur, law professor Markus Krajewski from FAU Erlangen described the imprisonment of climate activists as a “disproportionate encroachment on personal freedom” and calls preventive detention a “major constitutional problem”.

With regard to Bavaria, the scientist said that preventive detention is being used for something it was not actually intended for: it is being used to deter. “And we shouldn’t be deterred by preventive detention – we have prison sentences for that.”he stressed.

Preventive detention was actually introduced in order to be able to react quickly to impending terrorist threats. The application to climate protests, however, bypasses this purpose.