“…this includes precisely the question of whether the Letzte Generation is a ‘criminal organisation.'”
Since April, climate activists, calling themselves “Letzte Generation” (“Last Generation”) have been trying to bring car traffic in Berlin “to a halt” by glueing themselves to crossroads. This has led to heated debates, and provoked a lot of hatred from car drivers towards the environmental protest.
A few weeks ago, Felor Badenberg, minister of justice of the federal state of Berlin, instructed her administration to examine whether these climate activists fulfil the criteria of forming a criminal organisation. Her announcement caused uproar in the German public, especially as the prosecutor of the federal state of Berlin had already declared that he didn’t consider “Letzte Generation” a criminal organisation.
Does Berlin’s minister of justice want to impose political directives on the prosecutors? If she wanted, she probably could: In Germany, prosecutors are eventually bound by directives issued by the ministries of justice, although it is not very common to use this tool.
