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Comment by andyjohnson0 | Hacker News Reader

Regarding the decision she had to make, Merkel had two choices. If she declined to prosecute then she would be making a quasi-judicial decision in a county where judicial decisions are rightly made by the courts, not politicians. In passing the decision to the courts she is, in my opinion, making a clear statement of German values: this is how we do things - with the rule of law.

Which starkly contrasts with Erdoğan's contempt for the rule of law and anything that gets in his way.

The German constitution guarantees freedom of expression and the case will undoubtedly be dismissed when it reaches the courts.

(And I agree that laws such as this should be abolished.)

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The law[0] in question specifically says that the federal government has to authorize the prosecution.

[0] http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stg...

Just because the law allows to interfere with the prosecution does not make it morally right to interfere with the prosecution.

(By the way, prosecutors are anyway bound to instruction in Germany (usually by the state governments). That doesn't mean the governments should actually use that power.)

The law does not "allow interference", the law requires someone initiating the prosecution. Just because the law allows this does not make it morally right to initiate it.

An authorization to prosecute is not the same as an initiation. The law requires an initiation by the foreign head of state and an authorization of the German federal government. But that's semantics anyway. You should rather ask yourself, why should this law be treated any differently than all the others? It's written into it but that's the best reason one could find.

Because it allows for personal judgment by the german federal government WITHOUT sidestepping the law.

> The German constitution guarantees freedom of expression and the case will undoubtedly be dismissed when it reaches the courts.

The hurdle for civil suits (libel / slander / plain insults) is much lower in Germany. Flip someone the bird and you're 2000 EUR lighter.

> (And I agree that laws such as this should be abolished.)

Yes; it's anachronistic to persecute this as a crime, but as it stands now, I expect a verdict (most likely minimum sentence and parole). Maybe there's a way out by somehow spinning the matter in a way that makes Boehmermann look like he did not intend to actually broadcast the stuff; i.e. claiming that it was accidentally leaked.

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