Diplomatic Immunity
Interesting article about diplomatic immunity as a “get out of jail free” card in Germany.
Shopping for free involves no legal consequences for the roughly 6,000 diplomats in Berlin and their families. Protected by diplomatic immunity as guaranteed under international law, members of the diplomatic service have all sorts of options not available to others. They can ignore red lights without fear of being fined, race through a speed trap drunk, bully the maid or refuse to pay the workman’s bills.
Berlin’s public prosecutor’s office registered about 100 such offenses last year, including theft, traffic violations, fleeing the scene of accidents, and inflicting bodily harm. No one is keeping precise statistics. Those who get caught need only show their red diplomatic passport to get off scot-free in most cases.
Of course they’re being counterfeited:
It seems like everybody wants one of those nice red “get out of jail free” cards these days: Senior prosecutor Karlheinz Dalheimer warns that “counterfeit diplomatic passports have been a major problem recently.”
Bob • March 22, 2007 2:44 PM
There are legal consequences: diplomats can be booted out of the country. This is a career-limiting move, since they are unlikely to ever again get accreditation in any other first-world country. This type of international incident can severely limit their career prospects at home as well.
There was a case a few years back where a Russian diplomat was jailed in Russia for a crime committed in Canada.
The article seems to be mostly hype. It reminds me of one of the Lethal Weapon movies where a gang of “diplomats” run guns/drugs/whatever and go on a killing spree, supposedly under the protection of diplomatic immunity. It’s a typical movie-plot threat.
According to the numbers in the article, the average diplomat gets stopped once every sixty years for what is most likely a traffic violation. Big deal.