It just so happens that some (moronic) things won’t go away quietly, and this is certainly the case of the parteying Covidistan politicians. El Gato Malo wrote about it, and it certainly made some little waves internationally—but here’s the morning after.
According to Covidistan media, one of Schallenberg’s fellow party politicians (albeit from a local branch) just sued the leading politicians. This is pure (fool’s) gold, but enjoy it nonetheless (my emphasis):
‘ÖVP Local Politician Denounces Six National Politicians
Stefan Danzinger, a lawyer and ÖVP municipal councilor in Sollenau in Lower Austria, has brought charges against six politicians, including some from his own ranks. Why? They allegedly disregarded the current curfew restrictions. Specifically, the charges are against Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen, Federal Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP), Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens), and ÖVP cabinet ministers Elisabeth Köstinger, Karoline Edtstadler and Martin Kocher [all ÖVP], as well as “other persons yet to be identified”.
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The charges…hold: “The event involved musical presentations (live before the present public!), to which the suspects among other things clapped, danced, and partly loudly along-sang (!).” Alcoholic beverages were also consumed at the event, which Danzinger intends to document with photosgraphic evidence. He states in the complaint that distancing requirements were ignored, no FFP2 [KN95] masks were worn, and that there were “no other suitable protective measures [in place] that would minimize the risk of infection”, such as plexiglass partitions.
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[Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens) and Federal Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) at last week’s charity event.]
Critical reactions after the event clearly showed that “accepting calls for donations could easily have been done in home office. It was certainly at all necessary to engage in live singing performances in front of an audience or the public consumption of alcohol.”
Constitutional scholar Professor Heinz Mayer agrees with Danzinger’s complaint, calling its odds “promising”. It would be difficult to argue that the presence of the politicians was absolutely necessary in order to solicit donations, said Mayer, for this could also have been done with pre-recorded messages. There are maximum penalties of up to 1,400 €…
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For Peter Bußjäger, constitutional lawyer and administrative law scholar at the University of Innsbruck, holds that the charity event may have been a “professional meeting that could not be postponed”. After all, the ORF invokes the fact that it was not an event that was prohibited. Bußjäger: “One can already consider the ‘Licht ins Dunkel’ gala as a professional meeting that cannot be postponed and that is part of the public mandate of the ORF. This seems to me the crucial point, and if that is denied, then a problem arises of course.”
If the former position would be taken…Bußjäger concluded, then “the event and the participation of at least the Federal President and the members of the federal government in it would be permissible in principle.”
On the issue of the masking requirements, Bußjäger says that, in principle, no mask has to be worn at gatherings if all persons can provide proof of 2G [i.e., ‘vaccination’ or recovery]. “If these requirements are met, I don’t see an administrative violation now at first glance.” The lawyer also argued that the presence of the members of the federal government and the federal president could be seen as the exercise of their representative function, hence they could not be punished: “The situation would then be similar to Sebastian Kurz’s visit to Kleinwalsertal [earlier in the ‘pandemic’, former Chancellor Kurz visited this remote area, mostly for PR reasons], where the competent authorities in Bregenz did not initiate criminal proceedings for precisely this reason.”
State broadcaster ORF already rejected criticism last Friday: “The ‘Licht ins Dunkel’ charity event is…a TV production and not an event [note that the article uses the word ‘gala’ here]”, an ORF spokesman explained. “The guests in the studio were all contributors to the event [and here, too, so at least on a discursive level there’s quite some confusion], who also took donations over the phones during the evening. In this capacity, they were part of the production [see what I mean: they try to weasel their way out of this linguistic conundrum].” And, “all of the contributors were 2G-vetted and tested on the same day.”
Are Austrians allowed to own firearms?
Come on, rules are for little people, not for important government officials!