If I lock myself in here and close my eyes, nothing can hurt me.

July 9th, 2007 – German Interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble has proposed a radical plan to render anti-terrorism laws stricter for his nation. Among other measures, Schäuble proposed the phone-tapping and computer monitoring of suspected terrorists. This implies a lack of warrant or accountability. Officers and offices would be free to create their own criteria for what a suspect should be. Furthermore, the minister (whom hails from the Christian Democratic Union) suggests a clear law that would allow certain established terrorists to be assassinated without trial. Wolfgang gives the example of Osama bin Laden but such a law could easily lead people to take justice into their own hands against an enemy, or someone that looked like him, ‘it was dark, I thought his cane was a shotgun, I swear he had a beard…’ with obviously disastrous consequences.

This news story is not the easiest to find due to the controversy it is reeking on the German administration. Among others, the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has denounced these declarations as extreme and tactless. I can actually see both sides of the issue. Schäuble often quotes the United-States patriot act that allows the same measures that he is proposing; he claims to want to take every possible precaution to prevent a terrorist attack. Unfortunately, doing so in this manner would encroach on the very foundations of contemporary democracy. To spy on, detain or assassinate a person without trial or universal procedure contradicts the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ principle and has the potential for unlimited abuse. In parallel, we mustn’t forget the code of Hammurabi in c. 1800 BC and the laws of Solon in Greece (c. 610 BC); these were breakthroughs for humanity. For the first time, law was universal and could not be modified by the whims of administrators or the bribes of offenders. The United-States passed such a law after a traumatic and horrifying event in 2001, the German parliament (Bundestag) has gone through no such tragedy and thus are appalled and shaken at the prospect of losing certain liberties in the name of anti-terrorism.

Such a measure of ‘shoot on site without punishment’ was once implemented to weed out the enemies of the state. In ancient Rome, amidst a bevy of civil wars, power struggles and international aggression, the Senate would allow or even mandate certain Senatus Consultum Ultimum. Being the most important and official decree of this institution, it would allow the murder of a public enemy without trial or without consequences for the assassin. The statute of ‘public enemy’ was determined by VERY biased and influenced people who, in no way, held justice as the highest value to protect. In the 120s BC, two such decrees allowed the murders of the Gracchi brothers. They were enemies of the state because of several reforms the proposed: redistribution of wealth and land, sharing of power between rich patricians and the working classes, etc. At the worst part of the civil wars and at the terminal point of the Roman Republic, the Senate passed a Senatus Consultum Ultimum on Caesar’s head. Following this, Caesar took Rome, chased out the senate, formed a new one and got them to reverse the decree. These warranted assassinations usually worked but constantly and progressively lead the way to more drastic and tyrannical laws.

Such drastic and anti-democratic laws, in the present as in the past, by a government that is inherently not objective leads to abuse, unequal application of justice and general weakening of the democratic civilisation we have become. I applaud the complete rejection of Schäuble’s ideas and encourage him to find another drastic way to deal with terrorist potential without breaking constitutional and democratic essentials.

(Pictured: The Roman Senate at the time of Cicero - c. 60 BC - Guatanamo Bay, Cuba, a detention centre for untried terrorist suspects)

End.