The federal government suffers a defeat before the Federal Constitutional Court. A MP wanted to know how many personnel the domestic intelligence service sends abroad. The Ministry of the Interior must now answer that.
Even with the secret service, not everything has to remain secret for everyone: the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe has strengthened the information rights of parliamentarians with a ruling. The court found that the former federal government’s refusal to answer a question about the protection of the constitution by the FDP member of the Bundestag, Konstantin Kuhle, violated his parliamentary right to ask questions. Kuhle wanted to know how many employees the domestic secret service sent abroad between 2015 and 2019. (Az. 2 BvE 8/21)
The Federal Ministry of the Interior refused to provide information and justified this in December 2020 by saying that the information had to remain secret because the state welfare was “particularly” affected here. Kuhle, on the other hand, thinks that members of parliament should know about the subject when they vote on the budget for the intelligence services, for example. He moved to Karlsruhe and was now successful there.
The court stated that the refusal to provide information was not justified. The federal government at the time did not adequately explain that the state welfare was endangered: It only considered in abstract terms that foreign intelligence services were collecting information in order to put it together like a mosaic – the information could be a decisive part of this. The Federal Constitutional Court decided that the government should have explained this precisely.
Without a specific explanation, any information could be refused with this line of argument. If the “mosaic theory” were adopted, the parliamentary right to ask questions would be practically useless, explained court vice-president Doris König. The court emphasized that the welfare of the state was entrusted not only to the government but also to the Bundestag.
An appeal to this is out of the question if effective measures are taken to prevent official secrets from becoming known. The parliamentary control body responsible for the intelligence services, which meets in secret, is only an additional instrument that does not supersede other information rights of the Bundestag.
The court explained that the Bundestag’s right to information was not unlimited. The limits of this claim form – in addition to the area of ??responsibility of the government and the welfare of the state – the basic rights of third parties and the core area of ??executive responsibility, which is protected from access by parliament. However, these are not affected here.
