The German Example

Feb 24, 2012 Editorial

In the midst of four years of economic turmoil in the developed world, Germany has been the one country to buck the tide of deterioration and decline. And this has been true even in the present Euro zone crisis that has brought Greece to its knees with Portugal and Italy waiting in the wings. We hear a lot about “German discipline” as the reason for this happy circumstance but that discipline is not confined only to the world of work and production: they are also disciplined about the rules and tradition that form the bedrock of their ‘rule of law’.
This was brought home with great force with the resignation on February 17 of their President Christian Wulff. He had only been in the position since 2010: prior to that, he had been Governor of the state of Lower Saxony since 2003. Starting in December, revelations surfaced that he had taken holidays in the villas of wealthy friends’ and another friend paid for the Wulff family’s upgrade at a luxury Munich hotel. Then came the blockbuster: while he was Governor of `Saxony, he had taken a personal loan of €500,000 (US$650,000) from the wife of a friend without revealing it to authorities. He later managed to refinance it at a discounted rate.
What raised the ire of Germans, however, was Mr. Wulff’s attempt to bully the media from reporting on his dealings. He and his staff derided the reports but the final straw was his more recent attempts to suppress reportage by leaving threatening voicemail messages for the Editors of two newspapers. Wulff threatened “war” with the newspapers’ publishers. But he has been hoisted by his own petard; he himself passed strict laws on public officials’ conduct in Lower Saxony, where state-school teachers have been prosecuted for accepting free tickets to amusement parks.
The quality of Germany’s adherence to the rule of law and public morality was amply demonstrated by public anger over the demeaning of the highest national office, which – while largely symbolic – yet carries much power: among other things, the President can veto legislation, nominate a replacement Chancellor, and dissolve the federal parliament. Even though Mr. Wulff maintained that investigations would exonerate him, he said he was resigning because “Germany needed a President who had the full trust of the people.”
This story should resonate with us in Guyana. For too long we have been bombarded with all sorts of high sounding rhetoric about ‘democracy’ and the ‘rule of law’ in our country. Can anyone review the facts of the incidents that cause the President of Germany to resign and not conclude that we have had officials commit much more egregious breaches of ‘propriety’ and yet no action was taken against them. We note that even though he has resigned from office, public prosecutors in the Lower Saxony capital, Hanover, have asked the Bundestag (German Parliament) to lift Mr. Wulff’s immunity from prosecution. They want to prosecute him for ‘improper ties to businessmen”. Will this ever happen here? We doubt it.
But you never know. There have been some tiny sprouts shooting up that suggest change might be on the way. It is for that reason that we have detailed the level of probity that must be demanded from public officials from top to bottom if we are to achieve all or any of the lofty ideals that were spouted on the campaign trail. Much of what Mr. Wolff did may not even have been illegal – such as free upgrades – but were considered unseemly by the populace. And he had to go.
The attitude of officials towards the press for simply doing its job – to report news to the people – is also to be noted. The German President demonstrated that hubris does not only infect third world politicians: he also thought he should be given special treatment by the media. But it was the reaction of the rest of the political elite – including members of his own party that disabused him of this notion.

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The German Example

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