No more minors
Concrete rules for the use of informants planned
7/20/2023 6:06 p.m
So far, the use of V-persons in Germany has been subject to a general clause. The Ministry of Justice now wants to regulate the area specifically by law for the first time. Among other things, minors are to be excluded from the activity in the future. A judicial reservation is also provided for.
For the first time, concrete legal rules are to be drawn up for the use of so-called informants in criminal investigations. A draft by the Federal Ministry of Justice, which is currently being coordinated with the Ministry of the Interior, provides, for example, that minors and people who take part in an opt-out program should in principle not be eligible for this activity in the future. The same would apply if the reform were to be implemented in this way, for MPs and their staff. In the future, those who “have already been working as a confidant for more than five years” would also be left out.
Also, the individual informant should not be “depending on the monetary or non-cash benefits for the activity in the long term as an essential basis of life,” says the draft, which was first reported by “Spiegel”. The fact that there is now a need for legal regulation here also has to do with the case of a former informant who worked for the police in the criminal milieu for many years and later obtained information from radical Islamist circles as an informant.
So far, the use of informants has been based on the so-called general investigation clause. When they offer themselves to the police as informants, informants are often already moving in a certain milieu to which undercover investigators have no access. The situation is different with undercover investigators. These are police officers who investigate under false names and equipped with a so-called legend in a certain milieu. Both the use of undercover agents for the purpose of criminal prosecution and undercover investigators should in future have to be ordered by a judge.
Examination in the Ministry of Interior
A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior, led by Nancy Faeser, responded to the question of how the department responsible for the federal police and the Federal Criminal Police Office assessed the proposals: “A few days ago, the Federal Ministry of Justice sent the Federal Ministry of the Interior a draft regulation in the run-up to a departmental vote that had not yet begun.” The review requested by the Department of Justice has not yet been completed.
The draft from the house of Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann has nothing to do with the requirements for informants of the protection of the constitution. The coalition agreement between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP states: “We will legally regulate the requirements for the use of informants, informants and other informants from all security authorities and make them verifiable by parliament while maintaining the necessary anonymity.”