Society for Freedom Rights

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Society for Freedom
Rights (GFF)
logo
legal form non-profit registered association
founding 2015
Seat Berlin
main emphasis Fundamental rights , human rights
Action space Germany
Chair Ulf Buermeyer (chair), Boris Burghardt (board), Nora Markard (board)
Managing directors Malte Spitz (General Secretary)
sales 493,000 euros (2018)
Members 2400 (2020)
Website freedom rights.org

The Society for Freedom Rights e. V. ( GFF ) is a non-profit association based in Berlin that was founded in 2015. It pursues the goal of maintaining and expanding fundamental and human rights through strategic litigation . The GFF emerged as an association of lawyers and network politicians and cooperates with other non-governmental organizations in their complaints . Your area of ​​activity is primarily Germany .

tasks

The GFF would like to contribute to the protection of fundamental rights with strategically planned and prepared lawsuits and constitutional complaints . The GFF advises and accompanies persons or organizations who appear as plaintiffs and finances and arranges correspondingly specialized lawyers as their legal advisers .

Another field of activity of the GFF are lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act , so-called transparency actions , which are intended to help make the work of the state more open and understandable. The GFF is cooperating with the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany within the framework of their freedom of information project FragDenStaat .

activities

In partnership with Amnesty International , the Society for Freedom Rights submitted a constitutional complaint formulated by Matthias Bäcker to the Federal Constitutional Court in November 2016 , the passages of the Article 10 Act due to a suspicion-independent restriction of telecommunications secrecy , the discrimination against people without German nationality and the splitting of the control Competences reprimand.

Before the Constitutional Court of Rhineland-Palatinate , the GFF failed in 2017 with a lawsuit against the State Transparency Act RLP. In order to support the fragdenstaat.de portal, they demanded a right to anonymity for information access, which was rejected with reference to fundamental rights that were not impaired.

In addition, the GFF supports a lawsuit by a ZDF reporter against pay discrimination as well as the appeal proceedings of a doctor who was convicted in the first instance for advertising for the termination of the pregnancy ( Section 219a StGB).

In September 2018, the GFF participated with a statement to the Federal Administrative Court in the lawsuit against the Federal Ministry of the Interior's ban on the Internet platform Linksunten.Indymedia in August 2017 on the basis of association law . According to the GFF, Linksunten.Indymedia was not an association, but a telemedia whose content control was regulated in the interstate broadcasting agreement.

On January 10, 2019, the GFF submitted an urgent application to the Federal Constitutional Court against the unnecessary and dangerous transmission of registration data from the GFF's point of view. In cooperation with the Census working group , the law passed by the Bundestag in October 2018 is being challenged, which provides for the test transmission of sensitive data from all German citizens from the regional statistical offices for central storage from January 13, 2019. Includes: name, gender identity, marital status and religious affiliation. Encryption and anonymization are not provided. A constitutional complaint was announced on February 7, 2019, as this transmission was not stopped by the Federal Constitutional Court even after the urgent motion.

Members and Leaders

The Society for Freedom Rights was initiated by its chairman Ulf Buermeyer , judge at the Berlin Regional Court , and the Green politician and civil rights activist Malte Spitz , who holds the post of General Secretary. Further board members of the GFF are Nora Markard , professor for international public law and international human rights protection at the University of Münster , and Boris Burghardt , also a lawyer.

Other well-known members of the association are predominantly lawyers from the fields of international criminal law , data protection and freedom of information , criminal law and criminal procedure law as well as journalists and activists from the areas of privacy , surveillance, secret services and freedom of information.

collaboration

The Society for Freedom Rights works on a European level with various other non-governmental organizations:

Outside of Europe, the GFF is working ranks with the major US civil rights organizations American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

financing

The income of the GFF in 2018 amounted to 350,000 euros and was thus around 80% above the previous year with almost 200,000 euros. This in turn represented a growth of over 250% compared to the founding year 2016 with 80,000 euros.

The association is financed in roughly equal proportions from regular membership fees of its 2,400 sponsoring members (May 2020) as well as larger donations from German and international foundations. The latter include the Chaos Computer Club , Netzpolitik.org and the Movement Foundation . Larger individual donations were made by international foundations with a focus on civil society and the rule of law, including Luminate, with donations totaling 550,000 US dollars in the years 2018 to 2022 and the Open Society Foundations, with annual donations of 40,000 US dollars since 2018. In addition, the Shuttleworth Foundation raised $ 385,000 in funding for work on access to knowledge, academic freedom, and fundamental rights issues related to copyright in 2020 and 2021.

While large donations predominated in the initial phase of the organization, the budget share of small funding contributions from private supporters grew steadily and exceeded the institutional grants for the first time in 2019.

Audio

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The GFF supports transparency actions under the Freedom of Information Act . GFF. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
  2. ^ Original text of the application . GFF. November 15, 2016. Retrieved November 15, 2016.
  3. ↑ Amnesty sues against surveillance law (PDF) n-tv.de. November 15, 2015. Retrieved November 15, 2015.
  4. ↑ No right to anonymous IFG inquiries in Rhineland-Palatinate . golem.de. November 7, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2018.
  5. ↑ Press release No. 6/2017 . Constitutional Court of Rhineland-Palatinate. November 3, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2018.
  6. ↑ Society for Freedom Rights supports pay discrimination lawsuit . Röttgen, Kluge & Hund PartG mbB. March 20, 2017. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  7. ↑ Press release: GFF supports doctor Hänel in Section 219a proceedings . GFF. February 22, 2018. Retrieved February 23, 2018.
  8. ↑ Christian Rath: Civil rights activist for Indymedia , Taz , September 9, 2018
  9. ^ Urgent application to the Federal Constitutional Court: Against the unnecessary and dangerous transmission of registration data . GFF, Benjamin Derin. January 10, 2019. Retrieved December 8, 2019
  10. ↑ a b freiheitsrechte.org - 2021 census . GFF. Retrieved August 1, 2020.
  11. ↑ Draft for the amendment of the Census Preparation Act 2021 . German Bundestag. August 16, 2018. Retrieved January 16, 2019.
  12. ^ Heinrich Wefing: Verfassungsklagen: "We are entering new territory" . In: The time . November 17, 2016, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed November 26, 2016]).
  13. ↑ A look at freedom rights , interview with Ulf Buermeyer on WDR 3 Resonanzen, November 14, 2016
  14. ↑ We help the law become its law. In: freiheitsrechte.org. Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte eV, accessed on November 26, 2016 .
  15. ↑ Even stronger together: the GFF's international network
  16. ^ State of the Nation Podcast, Issue 29 . Kitchen studio November 12, 2016. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
  17. ↑ Balance sheet as of December 31, 20178. (PDF) In: freiheitsrechte.org. Society for Freedom Rights e. V., June 20, 2020, accessed on July 31, 2020 .
  18. ↑ a b Balance sheet as of December 31, 2017 (PDF) In: freiheitsrechte.org. Society for Freedom Rights e. V., January 9, 2019, accessed on July 31, 2020 .
  19. ↑ a b c Finances and Transparency. In: freiheitsrechte.org. Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte eV, January 2, 2019, accessed on July 31, 2020 .