Opinion: Range's revenge

"Every single day, we're amazed all over again," said Markus Beckedahl, the founder of the Netzpolitik website, right after the federal prosecutor's statement. The blogger is right. The judiciary and political fuss on offer this summer is hard to believe. It's bound to get even better over the next days.

One could have had an inkling as early as Monday, when Chancellor Merkel's spokesman said Justice Minister Heiko Maas has her full support. When a member of the cabinet is talked about in such a manner, he might be in a tight spot, politically speaking. Since then, the Social Democratic minister had been fighting for his political survival.

Federal Prosecutor Range and Maas aren't about to become fast friends, not in this life. The Karlsruhe attorney didn't want to be told by Berlin how to do his job. The fact that the Justice Ministry on Monday asked him to stop the investigation into the suspicion of treason shows that the procedure seems to be complicated and needs multiple, independent expert opinions - and by the way, judges used to be responsible for such matters. It also shows that the minister - at least at the moment - doesn't have his ministry under control.

When Range, launching into his statement with a profound "Ladies and Gentlemen," invokes the independence of the judiciary - set down in Germany's Basic Law - he fails to mention an important detail. Article 97 (1) reads: "Judges shall be independent and subject only to the law." Is Range a judge? No.

One glance at his own website might have helped Harald Range, a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party, to verify the understanding of his own job. This is how he's described: "As a 'political government employee,' the federal prosecutor must ensure that the government's basic views concerning the protection of the state under criminal policy aspects in the framework of specifications on criminal proceedings and latitude are integrated into and implemented in law enforcement activities."

In plain English that means that the government in power in Berlin is, in principle, in the driver's seat and that the federal prosecutor is required to carry out its bidding. His is a political job as a civil servant and not a judicial one. Furthermore, it says in the job description that a federal prosecutor "can be sent into early retirement at any time without explanation."

And precisely that has now happened.

Oh, and one last thing: state secrets, high treason? You can simply forget about that in an age where the highest offices in the land openly disagree on sensitive issues with the federal government.