Transparency Rules
July 4, 2007
German parliamentarians get a monthly salary of approximately 7,000 euros ($9,500.) But plenty of parliamentarians have extra money in their account at the end of the month from lucrative side jobs.
Politicians will now have to report how much money they earn and where the extra money is coming from, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday.
Nine politicians from four leading German parties had challenged a regulation that took effect in January this year which requires all members of parliament to disclose all additional sources of income.
The constitutional court said that well-paid private sector jobs
could seriously hamper MPs' independence and that the nation
therefore "has a right to know" if parliamentary representatives
earn money on the side. It added that in this instance, members of parliaments' right to privacy was second to the public interest in transparency.
Need for transparency
The law on transparency were decided by the previous Social Democrat-Green government in 2005 after an uproar in the country when it emerged that some politicians were making an additional tidy sum with lucrative jobs on the side.
Some parliamentarians were on the payrolls of German corporations without seeming to do much to earn the extra incomes. One high-profile politician was found to have accepted severance payments from an energy company which he had not even quit.
The revelations of these plum side jobs cost some politicians their jobs. It also raised concerns in the country about possible corruption and a conflict of interest if politicians were closely connected to big companies. Some also questioned why politicians, who are paid well in Germany, needed to take up another job.
Critics say parliament will be filled with civil servants
The transparency law passed in 2005 also said that voters had a right to know where elected politicians worked on the side and how much they earned.
Opponents of the law however argued that it infringed on the right of parliamentarians to be free to choose to practise their professions.
Hans-Joachim Otto, a member of the opposition free-market liberal FDP party, was one of the plaintiffs in the case. Otto is an attorney and notary. He and three other partners have an office in Frankfurt.
Otto said he didn't want to give up his job for politics. Having a job is the best way to maintain independence and bring real-life experience to politics, Otto told DW-WORLD.
Friedrich Merz, former head of the parliamentary group of Chancellor Merkel's Christian Democratic Party, warned that the parliament would be filled with civil servants and career politicians who would have little touch with real life in Germany.
Privacy concerns
"We don't need only more professional politicians but also more people with work experience and life experience and who are independent," Otto said.
He said the law threatened politicians' independence. An unintended consequence of the new law is that political life becomes unattractive for self-employed people and entrepreneurs.
Heinrich Kolb of the FDP was another of the plaintiffs. He owns a metal business with his brother. Kolb was worried the law would force him to disclose too much about his business, which he considers invasive.