German court orders Chancellery to disclose data on 300 Merz insult lawsuits

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has utilized the state apparatus to initiate approximately 300 criminal investigations against individuals accused of insulting him.

For months, the Chancellery attempted to prevent the public disclosure of which public prosecutor’s offices were conducting these cases. However, that wall of secrecy has now been dismantled. The Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court has ruled that the Federal Chancellery (Bundeskanzleramt) must disclose the name of every prosecutor’s office conducting an insult investigation involving Merz, as well as their respective file numbers.

The court reached this decision after rejecting an appeal by the Bundeskanzleramt against a previous ruling by the Berlin Administrative Court. The legal action was brought by the Berlin-based newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. Until the ruling, approximately 300 criminal cases involving allegations of insults against the sitting head of government had been shielded from journalistic scrutiny.

The legal foundation for these proceedings is Section 188 of the German Criminal Code. This specific provision provides enhanced protection against insults directed at individuals involved in political life.

The law states: “Whoever insults a person involved in political life in public, at a meeting, or by disseminating content, for reasons connected to the position held by that person… shall be punished with imprisonment from three months to five years.”

The manner in which these cases are processed is itself revealing. Citizens, NGOs, and state-operated reporting portals are encouraged—sometimes anonymously—to report “insults.” These reports are forwarded to the Federal Criminal Police (BKA) and then directed to the relevant regional public prosecutor’s office. The targeted politician is then notified of the situation and must decide whether to file a formal criminal complaint or allow the prosecution to proceed without objection. The Chancellery alone receives between 20 and 30 such files every month.

Merz states that he does not personally sign the complaints but does not block the prosecutions initiated on his behalf. Whether this statement is consistent with actual documentation is precisely what the Chancellery sought to prevent anyone from verifying.

In court, the Chancellery argued that there was no public interest justifying the release of the information and that merely naming the prosecutor’s offices and file numbers could violate the rights of the accused.

The court rejected these arguments. The judges stated that the Chancellor’s unique role in these proceedings necessitated the disclosure of the information, noting that neither jurisdictional objections nor a lack of urgency stood in the way of the ruling.

Specific examples of these prosecutions have drawn significant attention. A resident of Stuttgart who referred to Merz as a “Suffkopf” (drunkard) saw his home searched by police after Merz filed a complaint against him.

Proponents of Section 188 describe it as a necessary measure to protect democratic institutions from targeted harassment directed at officials. However, the practical application of the statute tells a different story. The category of “insult” remains flexible: German courts have struggled for years to determine where sharp political commentary ends and punishable disrespect begins, with individual judges reaching vastly different conclusions on nearly identical facts.

Within this ambiguity sits a provision that grants the sitting Chancellor and his office direct access to prosecutors to determine whether a citizen should be subjected to criminal proceedings.