Letter to German Ambassador to the U.S. about the German government’s latest findings on Scientology and other recent official vindications

As a result of the Labor Court Munich’s October 25th 2000 ruling in Winkler vs City of Munich, individuals of conscience, regardless of their association, can refuse to sign such filters. The "filter" has thus been exposed as a document bereft of legal integrity or substance and not worth the paper it is written on. I have attached a copy of the Winkler decision.

In the preamble to their questions, the MPs referred to a Federal Labor Court opinion of March 1995, apparently under the false impression that the Labor Court’s opinion was a binding judgement. The case dealt with a dispute concerning the labor law in Hamburg, not with religiosity. The opinion was merely an interim decision with no precedential value, based upon a defective lower tax court decision since overturned by the Supreme Tax Court.

The standard cited today by German courts when ruling on cases involving the Church of Scientology was set by the Federal Administrative Court in Mission Neue Brueke Stuttgart vs State of Baden-Wuerrtemberg in November 1997. The Federal Administrative Court held that services of Scientology are spiritual in nature and rejected an attempt by the government of Baden-Wuerrtemberg to classify them as commercial. The government withdrew its case and paid costs. I have attached a copy of the press release issued by the Federal Administrative Court at the time.

The Hamburg Appeals Court, citing the Federal Administrative Court, confirmed the religious character of Scientology on January 5, 1998. The Administrative Court in Stuttgart and the Social Court in Nurembourg shared this opinion in decisions in 1999 and 2000.

Continued

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