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3.3 Parliamentary Inquiries
Since the annual publications of law enforcement and intelligence agencies are not able to adequately represent or warn of current developments in far-right activities and hate crimes, parliamentary inquiries have become a very important monitoring instrument in Germany. The political party most active in making such inquiries on the federal level is The Left party, especially the MPs Petra Pau, Ulla Jelpke and other colleagues. The answers from the national government to these representatives’ monthly inquiries deliver the most up-to-date figures on politically motivated crimes of the right-wing that the police register in Germany. This information is broken down into where they occur (which state), the number of people injured as a result of these crimes, and the number of alleged offenders and arrests made by the police. The same MPs also make data available on registered anti-Semitic crimes by making regular parliamentary inquiries (every three months).(9)
Members of some regional parliaments, including politicians from The Left party, Alliance 90/The Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and the Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands), also use queries on the regional level to force the state governments to make more frequent and detailed reports on incidents of racist, anti-Semitic and right-wing offenses and the prosecution of these crimes. (10) According to information provided by Opferperspektive in an interview with the authors, parliamentary inquiries are much more frequently applied in the new federal states (Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Thuringia) than in West Germany. In the old federal states Bremen, Bavaria, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein, inquiries are not used at all by regional Mps, despite the fact that some of these states face severe challenges posed by right-wing extremist activities.
In Poland inquiries have also been utilized, however, without any satisfying results to this date. Over the last decade several formal questions were posed by parliamentarians who have tried to raise awareness on the issues of racism and neo-Fascism in Poland, often on the basis of publications like the magazine Never Again (Nigdy Więcej). The figures quoted in official government responses are almost universally considered insufficient in light of the small number of hate crime cases that are actually dealt with by the Polish legal system.(11)
One instance where it was successfully used was when the MP Janusz Krasoń of the Democratic Left Alliance (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, SLD) submitted a parliamentary query concerning the combat of right-wing hate speech in the Internet. In January 2008 Adam Rapacki, an undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior and Administration, responded with a reference to the data from the Police System of Crime Statistics Temida. The response stated that between January-November 2007 the following numbers of preparatory proceedings were launched: 10 preparatory proceedings concerning violation of Article 119 Section 1 and 2 of the Criminal Code (violence, unlawful threat towards a group or individual), three of which were submitted to a court with indictment. Of the remaining seven, one was suspended, two were discontinued due to the inability to determine the perpetrators, two were discontinued due to lack of criminal traits, one was finalized due to a decision not to pursue a charge (based on Art. 308 Sect. 1 of the Criminal Proceedings Code), and two were directed to family court. (12) In all, there were 66 preparatory proceedings concerning Article 256 of the Penal Code (the propagation of a Fascist or other totalitarian state system):
Table 8: Total number of preparatory proceedings in Poland according to outcome
| Outcome of preparatory proceedings | Number of proceedings |
| Shifted to another law enforcement agency | 1 |
| Submitted to court with indictment | 1 |
| Suspended | 1 |
| Discontinued due to reasons not involving prosecution | 2 |
| Discontinued to do inability to determine the perpetrators | 20 |
| Discontinued due to “little social harm” | 1 |
| Discontinued due to lack of criminal traits | 2 |
| Finalized due to a decision not to pursue a charge (based on Art. 308 Sect. 1 of the Penal Proceedings Code) | 3 |
| Directed to a family court | 9 |
Source: Ministry of the Interior and Administration: “Response of the Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Interior and Administration—as authorized by the Minister—to interpellation no. 205 concerning combating Fascist and Nazi movements on the Internet.”(13)
Despite the clear reluctance of the national government bodies in Poland to make more detailed information on incidents of hate crimes available, the instrument of parliamentary inquiries on the national and regional level seems to have untapped potential. NGOs willing to cooperate with (opposition) parties and individual politicians should further examine whether and how this option could be applied more effectively to further the public debate on hate crimes and put more pressure on Polish authorities, especially the law enforcement agencies, to improve their registration and monitoring systems.
9. Pau, Petra 2009. Anfragen im Bundestag zum Thema Rechtsextremismus, www.petra-pau.de.
10. According to information provided by interviews with victim support organizations, the NPD’s motive for these inquiries is to criticize regional NGOs for overreporting on hate crimes by comparing police and NGO figures.
11. Examples: Podsekretarz stanu 2008. Odpowiedź podsekretarza stanu w Ministerstwie Spraw Wewnętrznych i Administracji—z upoważnienia ministra—na interpelację nr 205 w sprawie zwalczania faszyzmu i ruchów nazistowskich w Internecie, Warsaw.
12. The total number of cases adds up to eleven; however, this reflects the breakdown from the Ministry of the Interior and Administration: Podsekretarz stanu 2008. Odpowiedź podsekretarza stanu w Ministerstwie Spraw Wewnętrznych i Administracji.
13. Ibid. These numbers total 58, while the Ministry cites 66 cases. No information explaining this discrepancy is available.
(OPP)
