Bundestag report: Haber procedure for vetting grant recipients deemed unconstitutional

• The German Bundestag's Scientific Services have concluded that the 'Haber procedure' used by federal agencies to vet grant applicants is unconstitutional.
• The procedure involves government ministries secretly querying the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) regarding individuals or organizations before awarding funds.
• The report finds the practice violates the right to informational self-determination and lacks a proper legal basis.
• The failure to notify affected individuals of the surveillance violates constitutional guarantees of legal recourse.

Overview and Scale

• Introduced in 2004 and updated by Emily Haber in 2017, the procedure has been used to screen approximately 1,200 civil society organizations and 1,300 individuals since 2020.
• Ministries use it to determine if grant recipients hold views deemed contrary to the constitutional order.

Legal Violations

• Data Transfer: The transfer of personal data from ministries to the intelligence agency lacks specific statutory authorization.
• Lack of Notification: The procedure involves no notification to affected parties, preventing them from challenging the results or the fact of the investigation.
• Constitutional Standards: Federal Constitutional Court jurisprudence requires that subjects of secret surveillance be notified once the need for secrecy lapses.

Background and Precedent

• Controversy spiked when Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer used the procedure to exclude bookstores from receiving awards after they had been selected by an independent jury.
• In the ensuing legal dispute, a Berlin court ruled against Weimer, prohibiting him from publicly labeling bookstore owners as 'political extremists'.
• Legal concerns regarding the Haber procedure were previously raised by experts in 2018 regarding its application to various democratic initiatives.