In the criminal proceedings against ex-Burg actor Florian Teichtmeister, who is accused of owning tens of thousands of files with pictorial representations of child abuse, the Burgtheater was not given access to the files. The application has now been rejected by the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters.
From the point of view of the court, there is no sufficiently justified legal interest of the Burgtheater that would go beyond “mere economic interests”. Teichtmeister’s former employer, who had been a member of the ensemble at the Burg since December 1, 2019 and was dismissed without notice on January 13, 2023 after the criminal charges against him became known, had requested access to the files in order to have the position of the Burgtheater GmbH in future labor court or civil law to strengthen procedures. “Considerable financial damage” Accordingly, the Burgtheater asserted that “considerable financial damage arose” as a result of Teichtmeister’s dismissal without notice. The management is “obligated to protect the legal interests of Burgtheater GmbH and to clarify to what extent it is entitled to claims against the accused”. “, which is why access to the file was requested on behalf of the Burgtheater GmbH in order to strengthen the position for enforcing legal claims in the event of proceedings for damages against Teichtmeister legal interest in the inspection of files – at least at present – “not specific”. No civil proceedings are pending between Burgtheater GmbH and Teichtmeister. “The mere idea of civil proceedings possibly taking place in the future does not sufficiently take into account the requirement of concreteness,” says the court decision circulate. The point in time, extent and nature of the accused’s knowledge of the charge that is the subject of the indictment and his fundamentally admitted responsibility in criminal proceedings can already be found in a large number of media reports”. Finally, it is stated that the assertion that the evidence and thus the legal position of the Burgtheater would change with knowledge of the entire improve file content is “too unsubstantiated” and the specified legal interest is therefore “not made sufficiently credible”.
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