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Germany: Trafficking legal according to High Court?

01 May 2001

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In an interview with a self?declared Fluchthelfer (flight helper, or "organised trafficker" in EU jargon), published in the newsletter of MP Ilka Schröder (Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus), the criminalisation of traffickers is questioned on the grounds of Germany's past High Court rulings. In various rulings from the 1970s, trafficking was declared legal, even if traffickers received sums of up to DM 40,000 from their "clients". Not surprisingly, the test cases were dealing with refugees and migrants from the former German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany. The interview discusses the precarious issue of taking money from refugees and destitute migrants and points to the fact that traffickers, however organised, provide a service whose limits are dictated by EU policy. But although trafficking has become extremely expensive due to increasingly government "managed migration", the trafficker asserts that "for those DM 40,000 which were commonly asked for at the German border, I can get a whole extended family from Sri Lanka to Germany".

Denkpause, the newsletter from Ilka Schroeder, is available from: abadatel@ilka.org
See High Court ruling III ZR 164/75, taken from BGHZ 69, 295?302.

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