There used to be a British comedy show called „Yes, Minister“ featuring a well meaning but naive Minister called Jim Hacker and his scheming Permament Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby.
The smooth-talking and wiley Sir Humphrey always had the final say about policies but he also always managed to give Jim Hacker the impression by various manipulative tricks that he had actually made the decision, thereby allowing Hacker the illusion of power and control. “Yes, Minister,” Sir H would cynically say whenever he got what he wanted.
Perhaps Austrian Justice Minister Dr Claudia Bandion Ortner should take time off from her strenuous schedule of trying to explain the many justice scandals overwhelming the Alpine Republic to look at a few episodes of this very entertaining and, alas, all too realistic comedy show.
Dr Bandion-Ortner has declared she can not understand why judges and prosecutors were up in arms about her prposal to have new special centres to tackle large-scale financial crime set up in Vienna, Linz, Graz and Innsbruck. According to the ORF, she expressed puzzlement that the justice officials did not want „help“ in solving gigantic financial fraud cases, noting they were always complaining of overwork and the inevitable errors that come with such „overwork.“
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She also could not apparently understand why the prosecutors were not so enamoured by her push for more training in tackling white-collar crime. Clearly her cabinet chef Georg Krakow has failed to brief the Minister on time to keep her on message.
It is becoming increasingly clear to the rest of the country that there are good grounds for believing that the judges and the prosecutors are playing a key role in covering up the gigantic financial fraud cases such as Hypo Alpe Adria and HIB as well as in actively committing smaller scale crime as in Dörnbirn. The only time the officials appear to become active is when it comes to slapping legal action on investigative journalists and activists who are exposing the various crimes or in mobbing colleagues who raise a flag.
The thought that special centres with officials specialising in white-collar cime could be set up all around Austria with the necessary resources and competence to investigate large-scale financial crime must surely be causing quite a few headaches.
It means yet more work for them, not less: yet more positions to annex, more bodies to infiltrate, more naive newcomers to instruct in the ways of the „Firm“. And there is always the risk that there is some maverick in such a white collar crime centre who is actually incorruptible, competent and honest begins to investigate THEM for their role in the various bank scandals and other frauds. („danger of a second class justice system“)
Sir Humphrey would surely have done a better job programming his „charge“. With a wink and a smooth explanation, he would have ensured the right policies remained in place to allow the gigantic fraud to continue uninterrupted by pesky investigations by new „economic crime“ investigation units from the very start.
The problem for Jim Hacker is, of course, that as the „frontman“ he has to take the responsibility before the people for the various „odd“ policies eminating from his office whether he knows what is really going on or not.
