The Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) ruled on 30 September 2014 that the BILD newspaper report about the child support affair of the former Brandenburg minister Rainer Speer was lawful from the beginning. Speer had paid no regular child support for his illegitimate daughter for years and tolerated that the child mother received child support payments from social services. The Federal Court of Justice ruled that a private e-mail correspondence of the Minister with his former girlfriend disclosed “mismanagement of considerable weight causing an overriding public interest in its discovery”.
The Federal Court of Justice reversed the rulings of the Regional Court of Berlin and the Court of Appeal that had prohibited BILD newspaper to report on the case and to use quotes from the e-mails discovered. Now BILD newspaper may use the mails, even if they probably originated from a laptop that had been stolen from the minister by an unknown third party. The Federal Court of Justice stated: “As a minister and member of parliament, the plaintiff belonged to the persons of political life whose behavior is – for the sake of democratic transparency and control –of increased interest. The defendant’s leaked e-mails prove that the plaintiff has withdrawn economic responsibility for his daughter and passed it on to the taxpayers. ”
Through its ruling the Federal Court of Justice strengthens the freedom of the press against confidentiality interests and clarifies that the press may also use information that may originate from criminal acts as long as not the press itself commits such acts.
(1 October 2014)