No Mistakes Were Made: The Kafkaesque Plight of Family Judge Dettmar (Part 2)

Plus an explanation as to why the new régime, while authoritarian and increasingly 'liberated' from constitutional norms, came into being

For the first part, please see here:

No Mistakes Were Made: Pedos are Fined, but Family Judge Dettmar Goes to Jail

Translation, emphases, and [snark] mine. As are the sighs.

---

No Mistake: The Written Appeal Ruling in the Obstruction of Justice Proceedings Against Judge Christian Dettmar

By Matthias Guericke, netzwerk-krista.de, 6 March 2025 [source]

A Fundamental Violation of the Law?

This overarching accusation is that of a violation of the principle of judicial neutrality. The alleged procedural violations are framed as violations of this principle (para. 48). The ‘outstanding importance’ of judicial neutrality ‘for the rule of law and citizens’ trust in its existence’ is then emphasized, and the defendant is accused of abusing ‘the position of power granted to him as a judge by the constitution’ (para. 49). At this point, the argument detaches itself from the specific individual allegations; the defendant’s entire conduct is cast in the dark light of a conspiracy—as in the Regional Court’s reasoning for the judgment – ​​and declared to be relevant to the perversion of justice:

The defendant's handling of the case was permeated by violations of the procedural rules, which he attempted to conceal in order to achieve his goal and which, in their combination, demonstrate a fundamental violation of the law. (para. 50)

The Senate [court of appeals] was able to identify three procedural violations (two of which must be described as ‘alleged’). Up to this point, there was no mention of Judge Dettmar attempting to conceal these violations (how could there be?), but suddenly the entire proceedings are ‘riddled with violations of the rules of procedure’ that he ‘attempted to conceal’. This simply repeats a claim made by the Regional Court without the Senate being able to substantiate it [talk about bearing false witness for a moment…]

A significant hurdle that the Senate still had to overcome at this point, however, is the Federal Court of Justice’s own established case law, according to which the question of whether a fundamental violation of the law within the meaning of Section 339 of the Criminal Code has occurred can only be decided on the basis of an overall consideration of all objective and subjective circumstances. Such circumstances include, in addition to the extent and severity of the violation of law, in particular the consequences this had for the parties, the extent to which the decision remained substantively in conformity with the law and the motives by which the judge made the decision [judge Guericke added a substantial footnote here with rulings, which I’m omitting from the translation]. The Senate refers to this case law in paragraph 32 and supports it with the decisions cited here (footnote 10).

In the decision of the 6th Senate of 18 April 2024 (6 StR 386/23), which is also cited by the Senate, a guiding principle unequivocally clarifies the meaning of this established case law:

Neither the particular gravity of the violation of law nor the established systematic violation of law relieves the court of its duty to evaluate the further circumstances of the offence. The court must objectively examine whether the defendant’s decisions remained substantively in conformity with the law.

For these proceedings, it follows from this established case law that the question of whether Judge Dettmar committed a fundamental violation of the law can only be answered once it has been clarified—in addition to other questions such as the motivation for his actions—whether the mask requirement in school was detrimental to the child’s well-being, as this is crucial to the question of whether the decision was substantively in conformity with the law [so, technically speaking, judges are obliged to proverbially gaze into the abyss, as Nietzsche wrote, to determine the veracity of any claim].

However, in paragraph 50 of the judgment, the Senate writes:

The fact that the defendant committed the violations of the principle of judicial neutrality with the preconceived intention of making the decision he desired without regard to any legal restrictions [here’s a footnote in which judge Guericke notes that this allegation is never substantiated] is so serious that, in the specific case, neither the defendant’s motives nor whether the final decision was substantively lawful are relevant.

What happened here?—In paragraph 32, the Senate sets out the standards for assessing whether a fundamental violation of the law has occurred and asserts their general validity; in paragraph 50, it explains that something different applies here. Asserting the validity of a rule only to immediately circumvent it is certainly not uncommon in real life, but this must be absolutely excluded in a judicial decision. Any rational argumentation ends the moment the validity of a statement and its opposite are simultaneously asserted. Only in this way could the Senate dismiss the appeal [by judge Dettmar; here’s another footnote in which judge Guericke notes that the Federal Court of Justice isn’t ‘bound’ (orig. gefesselt) by its own rulings—that goes without saying as this is case law, I’d add—but by definition, case law sets legal precedents]

On the same grounds, the Senate then also upheld the Regional Court’s rejection of a motion to take evidence, which sought to clarify the question of whether the decision was substantively lawful: this question was considered irrelevant in view of the seriousness of the procedural violations (para. 62). According to established case law, the Senate would instead have had to set aside the Regional Court’s judgment for rejecting the motion to take evidence, remand the case, and instruct the Regional Court to take this evidence.

At this point, one can essentially end the analysis of the judgment, because nothing that follows can no longer relativise the Senate’s fundamental breach of the rules. Therefore, the judgment’s statements on the question of factual success will be skipped here, especially since this would require lengthy and complicated explanations. However, it is still worth taking a look at what the Senate writes regarding [judge Dettmar’s] intent.

The Question of Intent

The question of intent only arises if the objective elements of the offence are affirmed. Therefore, when criticising the judgment’s statements regarding intent, one must hypothetically adopt the position of the Senate, which considers the objective elements of the offence to be present. Intent would have to refer to the procedural violations that are supposed to constitute the objective elements of the offence. [line break added]

In fact, however, the individual procedural violations no longer play a role in the discussion of intent in the judgment when the Senate writes:

The Criminal Chamber has extensively examined the defendant’s intent with regard to his bias and his awareness of the significance of the judicial duty of neutrality. Furthermore, the subjective aspect of the offence is evident in view of the overall circumstances. (para. 53)

Here, bias, i.e., an inner attitude or stance, becomes the criminal act, and for intent, it is sufficient to assert that the defendant was aware of his bias and, moreover, of the paramount importance of the judicial duty of neutrality. However, since only individual procedural violations can constitute a criminal act, the Senate should have examined whether the Chamber’s findings indicate that the defendant at least considered it possible and acquiesced in the unlawful failure to prepare a file note, to commission experts critical of the measures, and to refrain from holding hearings before the decision. However, the findings of the first-instance ruling provide absolutely no basis for this, because the Criminal Chamber viewed the criminal act as the bias itself or in the conduct of the proceedings with bias. Apart from that, it also failed to consider a legal obligation to prepare a file note and judged the failure to hold hearings itself to be irrelevant to perverting the course of justice because it was too minor [do re-read the paragraph if necessary: the ruling in the first instance asserted that individual acts were done because of judge Dettmar’s bias while the appeals court considered a ruling vs. (part of) the Covid mandates the bias]

Reasons Given

The question remains as to how such a ruling is possible. How was the Senate able to disregard the consistent jurisprudence of the Federal Court of Justice? Why did it seem justified to terminate Christian Dettmar’s professional career as a judge? [ah, well, punish one, educate a hundred: dear judge Guericke, take a page out of Mao’s Little Red Book and you’ll understand what happened]

The ruling itself appears to provide crucial clues in this regard. To this end, it is necessary to take the ruling seriously [this is precisely how one departs reality and enters the witches’ circle, by the way, which means that the former’s standards and norms no longer apply: reader beware of what follows next], especially at the point where the argumentation, from a legal perspective, is particularly diffuse and unclear: with the allegation of a breach of judicial neutrality, which, on the one hand, is the umbrella term under which the individual procedural violations are summarised, and, on the other hand, is of central importance independent of the procedural violations, to the point—as is particularly evident in the explanations regarding intent—that the allegation of individual procedural violations ultimately no longer matters [think of the ruling as the equivalent of Schrödinger’s Cat: I daresay that the Covid Manics—both back in 2020/21 as well as today—are perfectly aware of their contradictory stance, which they must nonetheless take lest rulings, such as the one by judge Dettmar, provide both a case-precedent and, what’s way worse from the point of view of the Covid régime, encouragement for other lukewarm, dithering judges to rule alike; once you take this into account, the ruling makes sense™, as does the appeals verdict (cover-up)]

But what does the accusation of a lack of neutrality mean if it doesn’t involve resulting violations of law? The answer seems to be that Christian Dettmar is being accused of forming his own opinion as a judge. He did not remain ‘neutral’ during the coronavirus crisis, but rather formed his own convictions about the measures. Virtually all of his colleagues who had to decide on coronavirus cases did not do so [judge Guericke, somewhat sarcastically, notes that the number of Covid-critical judges may not exceed five]. They refrained from forming their own convictions, in particular from establishing the facts of the case through the gathering of evidence, and instead relied solely on the Robert Koch Institute, its risk assessment, and its recommendations for action [and this, dear readers, is the true perversion of both justice and reality here: the dispassionate gathering of evidence in an open, public forum (court) has been replaced by reliance on ‘authoritative’ institutions, such as the CDC and the RKI; on a general level, this means that the courts’ functions to establish truth has been eliminated]. The fact that the RKI, as the federal authority responsible for assessing infection risks, classified the risk as ‘very high’ or ‘high’ was intended to replace any evidence gathering (and any independent critical consideration) [in footnote 15, judge Guericke notes that this ‘practice’ has not reverted to the pre-Covid norm]. And to the extent that the RKI could not completely replace its own opinion formation, existing gaps could be closed by referring to the ‘legislator’s or regulatory authority’s discretion’ and the fact that only a summary review takes place in expedited proceedings. Overall, this made it possible to wave through the measures (at least to a large extent) [wherever there may be holes in the RKI’s statements, ‘discretion’ is asserted, i.e., recourse to, in the final analysis, arbitrary interpretations, ad-hockery, and/or actions that may not hold up during later judicial review by, say, the constitutional court: that this is a kind of circular reasoning never troubles the mind of those who passed judgement on judge Dettmar].

The provocation for the judiciary associated with Judge Dettmar’s decision was not primarily that he implicitly accused the state government of endangering the welfare of children, but rather that he had presumed to form his own opinion. He obtained expert opinions on the controversial issues, something no higher administrative court had done in judicial review proceedings up to that point, thus demonstrating that it was possible for a court to treat coronavirus cases in the same way as all other cases requiring scientific expertise to establish and evaluate facts. He also demonstrated that it was possible to form one’s own scientifically sound opinion in this way, rather than simply following the views of third parties. He thus held up a mirror to the judiciary and demonstrated what it should have done in the coronavirus proceedings [thus judge Dettmar’s crime™]. The provocation was further increased by the fact that he reproduced the full text of the three expert opinions in the decision [remember, the judiciary is part of the gov’t paid for by taxpayers who have both an interest in, and a definite right to know, what is going on in courtrooms], thus clearly pursuing the purpose of providing other family court judges and the interested public with scientific foundations for forming their own opinions on the issue of mandatory mask wearing in schools [and then there’s the issue of fair trials and rulings arrived in an open court of law, which, if there’s one thing to criticise judge Guericke for, it’s his failure to make these arguments in a clear and loud voice].

Judge Dettmar, the defence, and also the author failed to understand until the very end why he, Dettmar, was accused, first in the indictment and then in the Regional Court’s ruling as part of the accusation of bias, of having formed his own opinion on the coronavirus measures [please allow me to explain once more: punish one, educate a hundred: most judges are careerists who forego higher salaries as (corporate) lawyers and are very much adapted to the civil service career ladder and its very own idiosyncrasies—and this means, in the final analysis, they will chart a middle course that neither puts politicos™ into too much trouble while, in virtually all rulings, they also seek not to rock the (career) boat too much lest they’ll endanger their own future; in other words, they may hold (strong) opinions on this or that issues, but this is typically not reflected in their rulings—which is also precisely why a ruling like judge Dettmar’s is so dangerous as it reveals what happens if you cross certain (of course unwritten) lines…] The Senate also begins its recounting of the Regional Court's key findings by stating that the defendant began to engage intensively and critically with the measures in mid-March 2020 (para. 4) [this is clearly a ‘thought-crime’ because what does that mean? Nothing other than judge Dettmar, as a citizen, formed his own opinions]. The defence repeatedly pointed out that no one affected by the measures could avoid forming an opinion about them, and if this led to bias, the proponents of the measures could also be accused of bias [of course this is true, but it is a truth that the Covid Maniacs can never permit themselves—and, perhaps more crucially, others—to entertain as it would immediately destroy both the house of cards (lies) erected around the Covid Mania and lead to massive bouts of self-reflection/criticism on part of those who participated in these shenanigans]. This lack of understanding disappears when one realises that the issue was not the factual content of the opinion at issue, but rather that Dettmar had refused to allow the ‘official authorities’ to dictate his opinion [judge Guericke is almost ‘there’]. This also explains why the now changing public opinion of the coronavirus measures, especially with regard to children and young people, clearly had no influence on the Senate's decision. The criminal proceedings were not about defending the coronavirus measures—it would be best not to discuss them at all [this ruling is the equivalent, morally and otherwise, of regrets on the morning after]. The aim was to fend off the accusation that the judiciary systematically failed during the coronavirus crisis, which was associated with Dettmar’s decision. And given the extent of the provocation, that meant that Christian Dettmar had to be convicted. Whether this was accompanied by a faint regret on the part of the Senate—also regarding the price it had to pay for it—is ultimately irrelevant.

---

Bottom Lines

From what I’ve read about and from Judge Guericke, I like his stance, his firm moral convictions, and his dispassionate reasoning.

That said, I do disagree with him on the explanation he offers—in public and in writing. While I cannot know what goes on in his mind, the closing sentence—in which judge Guericke asserts that whatever goes on ‘in the judiciary’ with respect to ‘faint regret’ or not as being ‘ultimately irrelevant’—is, sadly, very weak and inconsistent with the clarity and acuity of the rest of the piece.

The key issue here is that a primal abuse occurred in spring 2020 when the judiciary virtually summarily failed—judge Guericke being the notable exception—to hold both the government and public health authorities™ to account.

This is the original sin of the Covid Mania, which, taking recourse to the well-established political history, I shall label ‘Coronagate’ (after the Watergate scandal).

Everything else that followed after spring 2020 is akin to the subsequent efforts by the powers-that-be to cover-up their own misdeeds (the mandates, all of them based on lies), which by far exceeds the extent of the initial crime (in the Watergate context, this was the break-in by ‘the plumbers’, here we note the rulings of judges Guericke and Dettmar).

Once you consider the failure™ of the judiciary to hold gov’t and public health authorities to account in this light, I think what happens since 2020 is quite clearly intelligible:

A new régime has been installed, not by means of elections or a military coup; the new régime—whatever its ultimate shape—has been installed by bidding farewell to the rule of law, constitutional governance, and decisions arrived-at in open forums and under the watchful eyes of the sovereign people’s representatives.

Politicos™, journos™, and, we shall not overlook this, a sizeable part of the citizenry have abdicated their responsibilities; we note, in particular, the conspiracy between politicos™, journos™, and public health authorities™ was instrumental in pushing aside decades of norms and throwing out standards.

We’re already living under a new régime since 2020, and while this comes, for the time being, with most of the accoutrements of the previous régime (however imperfect that one was), it is a fundamentally different beast: parliament has been relegated to a sideshow, the gov’t has arrogated power beyond any constitutional constraints, and the judiciary has, once again, abdicated its independence and sided with the régime vs. the people.

I wrote the below lines in autumn 2021, but I’ll re-post them here to underscore these points:

When the Coronavirus Crisis came around, Austrians—like citizens in democratic countries elsewhere, esp. in Europe—were already well-accustomed to rule-by-decree and the loss-in-all-but-name of democratic representation via parliament…

The ‘new’ form of governance that exists these days is nothing that differs fundamentally from the norms and practices in place for the past generations: unelected officials proclaim a goal or venture, laws and regulations are drafted in the aftermath, and the theoretically sovereign people are, eventually (perhaps no more) asked to ‘validate’ earlier decisions.

As such, the Covid Coup…is actually nothing fundamentally ‘new’ or even substantially ‘different’ from the decay of popular sovereignty of at least the past generation. As such, it is hardly surprising that, so far, dissent is virtually absent in the public sphere (I know, censorship plays a role), but these ‘practices’ of governance have become so deeply ingrained and normalised over the past decades that it’s hard to notice any difference.

This might sound outrageous to you, but do keep the following context in mind: rule by executive fiat, or the ‘outsourcing’ (evasion) of responsibility on part of local, regional/state, or even national politicians by claiming ‘this isn’t coming from us, it’s something we need to do because Brussels (or Washington, for that matter)’ is frequently invoked to press for issues that a sizeable chunk, if not the majority, of citizens disagrees with.

Hence, the disillusionment with democratic governance in general, the lack of trust in institutions, and the eventual acquiescence into ever-more curtailments of civil liberties via ‘anti-terrorism’ legislation (aimed mainly at the surveillance of domestic dissent), the abrogation, via the declaration of a state of ‘medical martial law’, of a good part of the bill of rights (freedom to assemble and of expression, to say nothing about the public ‘shaming’ and threats to individual liberties and sovereignty over one’s own body now that ‘vax mandates’ are supposed to be instituted)…

If it can happen there, in an allegedly rich, western, and democratic country, I fear that this will happen elsewhere, too…fascist-authoritarian mindsets are (re)emerging among especially those segments of the population that have bought into the government narratives, however shifting and precarious, who appear to project their own virtue-signalling hypocrisy to the third of the population that is apparently still clear-eyed about at least some of these issues.

Do read ‘the rest’ here:

The Covid Puppets

I shall close this long Sunday read by citing one more paragraph from this otherwise bleak posting:

We should commemorate [the] passing [of the post-war régime], but what is more, we should think about what comes after the current ‘interregnum’ has passed. History continues, and there is no way that these absurdities, built on lies and malfeasance, will last forever. However long the descending night will continue, the sun of rights and liberties will rise again.