Ronald Schill

de:Ronald Schill Ronald Barnabas Schill (born November 23 1958 in Hamburg), a judge at an "Amtsgericht" in Hamburg from 1993 to 2001, was the founder of the German party Partei Rechtsstaatlicher Offensive (PRO, also called Schill-Partei - "Schill Party") that managed to gain 19.4% of all votes in the elections for Hamburg's parliament, the Bürgerschaft, on September 23 2001.

Due to his controversial rulings as a judge, which frequently involved the maximum penalty, he was given the nickname "Richter Gnadenlos" ("judge merciless"); most of these rulings were overruled by higher courts later on.

As a politician, Schill managed to get considerable media attention with his radical positions; among other things, he spoke out for the legalization of cannabis, demanded that sexual offenders who did not respond to therapy be castrated and stated that parents who failed to bring up their children "the right way" should be jailed. Furthermore, following the siege of the Moscow theater in October 2002, where 129 of 800 hostages where killed by nerve gas, he proposed that similar gas should be used by German police to fight terrorism.

Following the 2001 parliamentary elections in Hamburg, he became second mayor of Hamburg and senator for inner affairs; among other things, he announced that he would halve crime rates within one hundred days, an undertaking which remained unsuccessful.

Shortly after assuming office, Schill was anonymously accused of cocaine abuse. He voluntarily underwent hair analysis which did not yield any evidence of cocaine consumption, and after the findings had been made public, the prosecution authorities stopped their proceedings against Schill.

Schill managed to cause a stir and a wave of indignation throughout the whole of Germany when he spoke in front of the Bundestag, Germany's federal parliament, on August 29 2002. In his speech, he voiced his opinion that the victims of the Elbe flood catastrophe would not be able to be compensated due to too much money being given to foreign countries; he also berated politicians of all parties, his speech culminating in the words "We (in Germany) have the most capable people, but the most incompetent politicians" ("Wir haben (in Deutschland) die tüchtigsten Menschen, aber die unfähigsten Politiker").

He further reviled politians by stating that they wasted money, went through the world with a "goblet of charity" to give away German tax money, brought refugees into the country and build "glamourous solitary cells" for prisoners; after accusing the parliament's vice president Anke Fuchs of violating the constitution, already over his time quota, he first was warned, then asked to finish his speech, and finally had the microphone turned off 15 minutes after the end of his timeshare.

He then made headlines again when another government official, Wellinghausen, who held the office of a Staatsrat and was supported by Schill, was accused of illegally having a second employment in summer 2003; finally, Schill was removed from office by first mayor Ole von Beust (CDU) on August 19 2003 due to "not being qualified (for the position) with regard to his character" ("charakterlich nicht geeignet").

This was preceded by a private discussion between von Beust and Schill, in which von Beust announced his intent to remove Wellinghausen from office. According to von Beust, Schill then threatened to make public an alleged love affair between von Beust and judiciary senator Roger Kusch (CDU), which would have resulted in a conflict of interests on von Beust's side.

Schill, on the other hand, told the press that he only had appealed to von Beust to not apply double standards, claiming that he mentioned the case of his fellow party member Mario Mettbach who cancelled his decision to hire his significant other as an abstractor; he further stated that this collided with von Beust's making his partner Roger Kusch a senator and that the public had a right to be informed about these issues. Roger Kusch publicly admitted to being homosexual soon afterwards; mayor Ole von Beust, however, did not comment further on his sexuality, pointing out that his sexual orientation was a private issue alone.

Schill's removal from office was appreciated by many organizations, including the churches and the police union, even though Schill continued to be a member of Hamburg's Bürgerschaft.

On December 6 2003, the federal executive board of the Partei Rechtsstaatlicher Offensive, led by Mario Mettbach, removed Schill from his office as the party's chairman for Hamburg and denied him the right to assume further offices in the party. In response, Schill publicly ridiculed the party's executive board, stating that he could just as well have been removed from office by his haircutter.

Three days later, Ole von Beust declared the coalition of CDU, FDP and Schill Party to be terminated and asked the parliament to order new elections. Another week later, on December 16 2003, the Schill Party's federal executive board decided to expel Schill from the party; at the time of this writing, Schill has not yet decided whether to challenge this decision at the party's court of arbitration.

On December 18 2003, Schill, together with five former members of the Schill Party faction in the Bürgerschaft, formed a new faction; his former partner Katrin Freund was elected chairwoman. He announced that in case he would not manage to get 5% of all votes in the new parliamentary elections (and thus not be present in the new parliament), he would emigrate from Germany.

In the elections, on February 29, 2004, his group won only about 3% of the votes. He confirmed that he would emigrate, "probably to South America". So he did in fall of 2004 and emigrated to Cuba.

External links

• Biography (http://www.ftd.de/db/mu/1061019386598.html?nv=rs)
• Schill as a judge; an article from the Sonntagsblatt (http://www.sonntagsblatt.de/artikel/1999/51/51-s5.htm)
• An interview with Schill at planet-interview.de (2001) (http://www.planet-interview.de/interviews/pi.php?interview=schill-ronald)
• "Vote for me or I'll emigrate"; an article from Der Spiegel (in German) (http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,279244,00.html)