On July 15, 2003, the hearing in the legal proceedings initiated by Dr. Peter Nittmann against the enforced imposition of church tax on unemployed non-church members by the state took place at the Sozialgericht of the State of Baden-Württemberg. Thanks to your communications of solidarity, but above all thanks to your protest letters to Chancellor Schröder, the trial has taken an unexpected – in fact, one could even say sensational – turn. At the very hour that the judgement was being pronounced, the government announced that it was planning to stop imposing church tax on all the unemployed! Let's see if they keep to this. While the court was once again dismissing Dr Nittmann's demand for the return of the church tax that has been unconstitutionally deducted from his unemployment benefit – which means that there will be another trial, which we will continue to keep you informed about – the government found itself forced to move due to the international protests. But let's stick to the chronological order here. The state Sozialgericht hearing had several peculiarities that are worthy of mention.

First: the presence of armed police, aimed at intimidating the public audience, which was once again high in number. The prescribed behaviour for the audience, who were deliberately squashed into a courtroom that was too small, was laid out disgracefully in a »police disposition regarding courtroom order«. Police were »permitted to carry their service weapons« in the courtroom. But the idea behind this outrageous intimidation didn't work: those members of the audience that had not been allowed in enforced the relocation of the hearing, which had already started, to the largest courtroom that had the capacity to seat everyone, and this was the first success – which is, psychologically speaking, not to be underestimated: the public audience had triumphed over the sinister back-room trickery.

Second: the court was accordingly more nervous, and not without reason: alongside the German audience, who had been informed of the matter by our flyers, there were also international trial observers and journalists from France, India and Canada present. By the time the hearing had started, hundreds of protest letters from abroad had arrived at the Chancellor's Office, most recently from three international conferences from Albacete (Spain), Marseille and Chicago. This meant that there was no way the plaintiff could be brushed off secretly or worn down by being pushed from one hearing to the next, as had happened in thousands of similar cases before.

As in all of these trials, one couldn't help but get the impression that the verdict had already been decided on beforehand. The presiding judge was as slippery as an eel, appeasing paternally and not open to any argument – part of the well-oiled machinery of a legal system that has been proficient in constitutional violations for decades. Neither the stringent explanations of the lawyer, Gottfried Niemietz, nor the concluding statements of the plaintiff – the repeated and loud applause from the audience couldn't be suppressed – changed anything as far as the verdict was concerned: case dismissed, reference to the next authority, more years of attrition and waiting, more effort, money and time for nothing. Or so it seemed. Apparently...
…because what no-one could know at this point, as the judge was reading out the verdict, was that the following press release was being sent to all the news agencies from Berlin (HANDELSBLATT, July 15, 2003, 14.23 hours):

Read and be amazed! Instead of the legal system, the executive board, i.e. the government itself, has now decided to take the matter into its own hands, startled into action by the numerous protest letters from abroad, from free thinkers, atheists and democrats all over the world. But this doesn't mean that this illegal practice is at an end:

The legal system is continuing to block this, as the aforementioned ruling passed by the state Sozialgericht has shown, and the German government is also turning a deaf ear to this matter. So: more effort, continued and unceasing international attention is necessary in order to achieve justice for those unemployed who have been robbed and their money used to add to the billions already swelling the coffers of the major Christian churches. The lawyer, Gottfried Niemietz, who is representing the plaintiff, Dr. Nittmann, is currently taking the appropriate steps, and we will be keeping you right up to date on the further course of events.
    The development so far has shown impressively that we are on the right path. A critical, attentive public is the best and most powerful means of exposing and attacking any kind of shady business – including constitutional violations for the benefit of a church that is shameless when it comes to lining its pockets and those of the state that is its obedient servant. This battle requires steady nerves, stamina and a full grip on reality. We are determined to see it through to the end.