The corruption plaguing the Austria’s justice system has been dramatically highlighted by the trial of 13 animal rights activists under a new paragraph introduced to deal with organised crime.
Though millions of euros have been spent, and a 200,000 page report compiled, it has become evident Judge Sonja Arleth has failed to find any evidence that any crime at all was committed by the activists, who have had their lives ruined by arrests and imprisonment in some cases of 110 days as well as a lengthy trial.
The latest bizarre twist came when an undercover police agent, who had spent 16 months with the group and who found no evidence of any criminal action, but whose report had been removed from the file, took to the witness stand.
Judge Arleth said the undercover agent would take the witness stand in a separate room and wearing a disguise, but uproar broke out on Wednesday when the activists claimed that the supposed witness was not the actual agent, sparking fears that they were about to be set up. The trial had to be halted as police dragged protestors away.
The agent finally took the stand on Thursday wearing a black wig in a separate room only to reaffirm by video link that she found no evdence of any crime committed by the group.
The only evidence of any crime so far is a DNA sample found on a stone that an activist has, however, denied throwing.
Law expert Bern Christian Funk had strong criticism of the trial in Die Presse.
And indeed, anyone following this trial has to ask: how is such a fiasco is possible and just who is appointing people like Judge Arleth?
Is this the generation appointed by far right Freedom Party politician Dieter Böhmdorfer who was Justice Minister between 2000 and 2004?
Unlike other European countries, the justice minister in Austria can appoint judges directly, leading to excessive political influence on the justice system.
Funk said that the charge levelled at the accused activists of belonging to a criminal organisaton was „worthy of criticism“ and the regulatons were „vaguely defined.“
He also criticised Judge Arleth for reformulating – sometimes falsely – every single question posed by the defendents and for „clearly lacking the freedom from emotion and relaxed attitude that she demanded from the accused.“
Funk noted the principle that the Courts should make justice „visible“, adding „there was a big visibility problem in this trial.“
This trial could be written off as one-off, politically-motivated witch-hunt or employment measure of a coterie of lawyers if it were not for so many other justice scandals engulfing the Alpine Republic.
The Austrian parliament this month launched an inquiry into whether evidence that a paedophile ring was involved in the abduction of Natascha Kampusch was suppressed by countless state prosecutors and justice officials and also whether police chief, Franz Kröll, was murdered this summer for asking too many questions during his investigation.
Five leading state prosecutors in Vienna are being investigated by colleagues in Innsbruck after the parliament became involved in the case, following an appeal by a former judge. One MP suggested top level politicians could be involved in the paedophile ring.
In addtion, Justice Minister Dr Claudia Bandion-Ortner — who was allegedly offered her job by Raiffeisen bank boss Christian Konrad in a cafe in Vienna and who has she refused to answer parliamentary questions on this – has come under fire for apparently manipulating the evidence during the well-known Bawag trial, and in such a way that all the blame was laid on Social Democrat Helmut Elsner while other culprits got away scot free.
Austria’s highest court is to rule on whether Bandion-Ortner’s Bawag trial judgement was flawed on December 22 and 23rd. An attempt by Bandion-Ortner to appoint a fellow Bawag judge to the court failed because judges expressed the fear that her appointee could be biased.
If the ruling goes against Bandion-Ortner, she may be forced to resign.
Finally.
However, Interior Minister Maria Fekter, a former Justice Ombudswoman, could replace her. This would be a bit like removing a Mickey Mouse only to find a Donald Duck taking over.
It has, in the meantime, emerged that Russian secret service agents even have a permanent office in Fekter’s Interior Ministry in spite of – or because of? — their well known links to organised crime, including human trafficking.
Die Presse newspaper has argued this week in a comment piece that Austria’s needs an independent justice system of the kind other countries have.
My experience with the local court at Hietzing in connection with the estate of my late father suggested a total breakdown of law and order in the country has occurred and on every level.
Because magistrate’s courts in Austria automatically get involved in administering estates, there is enormous scope for corruption. In Dörnbirn, it has emerged that judges, solicitors and other justice officials systematically forged the last wills of people to enrich themselves for years. The first 11 victims to apply for compensation from the government have all been denied it, parliamentary questions revealed two weeks ago.
Like the animal rights activists, I was forced to expend great energy to clear myself of the false accusation of having „constantly asked for ever new evaluations of several properties“ – an accusation – trivial as it was — that could have seen me stripped of all my rights and seen me placed under a court guardianship by a judge, Michaela Lauer, who, according to concrete facts, manipulated files to remove evidence of her wrongdoing, who has told falsehoods, and who, more recently, may have been involved in tampering with signatures on docments etc.
Criminal charges against Lauer and co this summer brought no response from any body, not even the highest corruption prosecutor Walter Geyer. Geyer said I had no evidence of a court guardianship being put on me by a false statement. However, the Judge in Döbling where I live stopped the court guardianship precisely for that reason. How come Geyer could not see it? Or any other of the zig judges who reviewed the case?
I had just about managed to get the court guardianship and curator cancelled when Judge Michaela Lauer slapped the same curator, Dr Philipp Nierlich, on a second time and that even though I had expressly asked for time to get legal advice about how to proceed.
And no sooner was he appointed a second time, than Nierlich changed the locks on my father’s house in Hietzing under the pretext of having to look after it. He refused to give me a key as a replacement. He told me on the phone that the house belonged to the „estate“ and denied I – along with my brothers – am the estate in what appeared to be an attempt at intimidation.
The estate is comprised of the legal heirs under Austrian law and he must surely know that. The curator has to act for the heirs and in the interests of the heirs under Austrian law and he must surely know that too. But there is Dr Nierlich actualy telling me that the estate is something completely separate and I have no rights as an heir; the house is not part of my inheritance. He also told me I had to get a lawyer to ask for a key so I can access my own father’s house again.
To cap it all, he said he knew Dr Bandion-Ornter personally.
For people who grew up in the UK like myself, this kind of approach by justice officials is draw dropping and it is completely unacceptable.
But here in Austria, it seems to be the norm in the meantime. If you dare complain, you are placed under a court guardianship or jailed under a false accusation, it would appear.
Interestingly, Judge Lauer seems to be about the same age – and also apearance — as Judge Arleth in her early thirties.
Just who was responsible for appointing this generation to positions of power in the justice system? Judge Arleth has just shown the entire Austrian media that too many of them are either incompetent or corrupt or both at the same time.
Is this the generation appointed by far right Freedom Party Justice Minister Dieter Böhmdorfer between 2000 and 2004?
Under the European Arrest Warrant, the poor quality of Austrian justice officials could become a disaster for all Europeans. Innocents from all over Europe could find themselves sucked into this whirlpool of legal action such as the animal activists trials traversty.
