The fallout from the Regina Spiess Dossier continues.
No wonder why Jehovah's Witnesses challenged her in court AND lost big time.
The following is an extract from this article
Although the judgment is not binding for German courts and authorities, it is nevertheless relevant in terms of content, since the teachings and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses are approximately the same worldwide. The most important legal question in Germany in this context is whether the legal form of a corporation under public law (KdöR), which the Jehovah's Witnesses acquired in all federal states between 2006 and 2015, must be reversed due to a lack of general legal compliance and compliance with fundamental rights. The question of revoking recognition as a religious body has hardly arisen in practice. Here it is all the more urgent.
The existence of the corporate status of religious and ideological communities and the associated "bundle of privileges" are to be rejected for numerous reasons. These privileges include, above all, the right to levy taxes, tax breaks, exemption from works constitution and collective bargaining rights, airtime and membership in broadcasting councils. This preference for corporations over religious communities under private law can hardly be justified.
The corporate status is also not necessary for the existence of religious communities, because there is the guaranteed "freedom of association to religious communities" according to Article 137 paragraph 2 WRV. The omission of Article 137 (5) WRV would also be unproblematic with regard to the realization of religious freedom under Article 4 GG and would only require a new federal law regulation of the common general status of religious and ideological communities, for example in the form of a modified association law.
It is all the more unacceptable that the requirements for recognition of corporate status by the courts and in some cases by the state governments are applied as casually as was the case with the Jehovah's Witnesses.
The process of recognition as a corporation in all federal states was preceded by several court proceedings in which, among other things, the Federal Constitutional Court specified the requirements for obtaining it in 2000 (file number: 2 BvR 1500/97). In the context of the first granting of corporate status in Berlin, for example, the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin stated that there was no evidence of "active work towards a separation of spouses and families, which could also act as a permanent block against leaving" (OVG Berlin, judgment of March 24, 2005 - 5 B 12.01 -, juris para. 38). Among other things, the Federal Administrative Court had previously regarded this as a sufficient reason for the denial of corporate status and referred the proceedings back to the OVG for a specialized judicial investigation (BVerwG, judgment of May 17, 2001 - 7 C 1/01 -, juris para. 19) . An overview of all procedures can be foundon the Jehovah's Witness website .
The decision of the District Court of Zurich discussed here contradicts the factual assessment of German administrative courts on several central points, although the same practices of the religious community were considered. The judgment thus suggests that the German courts followed the statements of Jehovah's Witnesses too ignorantly.
If one subsumes the factual assessments of the Swiss judgment under German law, one must come to the conclusion that Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany are also systematically behaving in a way that violates fundamental rights. The religious provisions, in particular with regard to ostracism within the nuclear family, the promotion of sexual abuse and the de facto compulsion to refuse life-support measures, violate the fundamental rights of the believers and their relatives, at least Article 2 paragraph 1 in conjunction with Article 1 paragraph 1, Article 2 paragraph 2 , Article 4 paragraphs 1 and 2 and Article 6 paragraph 1 of the Basic Law.
According to the above-mentioned judgment of the Federal Administrative Court (para. 21), behavior by the religious community that runs counter to a state duty to protect can in itself exclude the granting of corporate status. The active protection obligations of the state derived from Article 2 paragraph 2, Article 4 paragraph 1 and 2 and Article 6 paragraph 2 sentence 2 of the Basic Law are undermined by the practices of Jehovah's Witnesses.
At the same time, it is possible that the authorities granting corporate status and the reviewing courts, by legitimizing those religious practices as "lawful", violated their protective obligations resulting from the endangered fundamental rights. This could have happened in particular because the religious community can now more easily commit or conceal fundamental rights violations through the privileges gained through corporate status. Furthermore, the official and / or judicial classification as "lawful" has at least a factual binding effect for future proceedings.
All in all, it can be stated that the requirements for granting corporate status are not and have never been met. This is why this must be reversed (see, for example, Paragraph 4 of the NRW Corporation Status Act ).
