Bullying process: Tina Feser wants justice
These days Tina Feser may get her dignity back. Because in November, a court decides whether the report, which the former tax office declared mentally ill, meets medical standards, or whether the rebellious officer was unfairly cold as "incapacitated" cold. But even if the appraiser is convicted-reparation for all those years in which Tina Feser felt humiliated and persecuted by the state, it can not be. Confidence in a system of which she was once proud was finally lost. "What happened to me was beyond my imagination," says Tina Feser. "The state has taken from me what I loved most: I was a full-time official."
When she comes near the Frankfurt tax office V today, her stomach contracts, her hands are getting wet, her throat tight. Tina Feser belonged to the tax investigation of the banking teams. "Tax investigation - it's like thriller, it was my dream job," she says. Germany's financial capital has always had plenty of illegal banking. Often Tina Feser and her colleagues have been able to prove criminal overseas business or tax evasion. For the state, they returned millions of unpaid dues. Tina Feser was proud to play with the good guys and to help make things a bit more fair in Germany. But then comes the year 2001, and Tina Fesers confidence in the justice of the state gets its first cracks.
The new court order violated the law: Tina Feser was convinced of that
In a sealed envelope, all tax investigators receive a secret official order from the district official. From now on, they are usually only allowed to investigate cases of suspicion if there is evidence of individual remittances of at least DM 300,000 or a total of several remittances of at least DM 500,000. "That seemed completely absurd to me," recalls Tina Feser. "Anyone who has committed a crime must be prosecuted, because you can not set arbitrary limits." Especially as the denomination in small, inconspicuous sums is a very commonly used method to cover up tax evasion. The official fears thwarting in office, many of the colleagues in the team see the same. They protest, talk to the supervisor. But their concerns are dismissed. Officially, the order is intended to curb the flood of cases handled by the scout teams. Some officials fear that there are other reasons behind this measure. Not every powerful business enterprise should have tasted the snoops of tax inspectors. And which bank is thrilled if the transaction made via it turns out to be illegal?
Tina Feser is now studying painting. The pension she and her husband - even a former tax investigator - relate, is not lush
The coordinator of the banking teams uses the sharpest weapon that an official can use: he remonstrates, contradicts the supervisor in writing and officially. The experienced investigator is promptly punished: Only four days later, he must compete in another tax office. "First we were shocked," says Tina Feser, who was also active as a personal adviser, "then we have joined forces." 48 investigators meet privately, sign a letter to Prime Minister Roland Koch. They hope he can stop the unsustainable conditions if he only hears about them. But her attempt to contact Koch flies up before sending the mail. Many withdraw their signatures and Tina Feser is pressured, but she - and a few other colleagues - remain steadfast. "I swore by the Constitution and always took this oath very seriously, what was planned here simply went against the law." What no one knew then: The state government has long been informed, knows the official order. But she does not intervene. The Hessian SPD found that even started a committee of inquiry into the affair. Finally, the Tax Office regulates the "problem" in a different way.
She is forcibly displaced. Just like her husband and the other officials who continue to protest
Tina Feser is - like all the others who continue to protest against the order - offset. She ends up with six other high-paying officials in the newly created "Legal Service Center". "An absolute air number," says Feser. "We had nothing to do, no cases, no responsibility." The qualified officer, who was previously able to order searches and summonses, heard witnesses and was responsible for training, knits sweaters for three months, sorts holiday photos, looks out the window. Then her old job will be re-tendered."This made it clear to everyone, but also to everyone in the tax office: Our transfer was a pure punitive action - anyone who looks up has to expect something similar." In the Hessian Ministry of Finance, however, it is said that this was part of "extensive structural reforms", which will be completed in 2010 and of which, according to the spokesman for the tax office, "hundreds of other employees" are affected.
From her new boss, who gets the department after months, she feels bullied, offended, devalued. "Now we had a few cases, but I got back every letter, either a comma was wrong, or a sentence should be sent to another location." Self-doubt and nightmares torment her, her stomach hurts, it is often difficult for her to concentrate. Time and again she wonders: what's going on here? How can it be punished by the state for wanting to abide by the law? What is really behind it? Was she just too rebellious? Or should a "tax haven Hessen" be created? Is this possible in our country?
Even at home, only the work topic, because her husband Heiko was also a tax investigator in one of the banking teams. He, too, has been forcibly relocated, has to take on auxiliary jobs and feels treated as if he had "an infectious skin disease". One morning, Tina Feser can not stop crying: "I was completely annoyed at the end."
Tina Feser can not do it anymore. Your doctor talks about bullying for the first time
She goes to the doctor, who talks about bullying for the first time. After months of war of attrition - both are on sick leave many times -, renewed applications and a six-week stay in a specializing in bullying clinic demands the authority a psychological report - for Tina and Heiko Feser and two other tax investigators. The Fesers hand over to the appraiser H. the examination results from the clinic. It states that they are capable of working again and that now "all possibilities for vocational promotion should be exhausted". - "Everything will be fine," think Tina and Heiko Feser. But everything is getting worse.
The verdict comes by mail: incapacitated. After the one-hour conversation, the reviewer decided: Tina Feser was suffering from an "adjustment disorder" with "partially paranoid symptoms", in Heiko Feser's case it was a "paranoid-lateral development". Both are not treatable. "It was like a death blow," says Tina Feser, "personally, economically, professionally." On February 1, 2007 she will be 36 and her husband will be aged 37.
Now, after almost three years, Tina and Heiko Feser can at least hope that a government agency will tell them: You were not to blame. The public prosecutor's office determined that in the summer the doctor's office H. search. But first the appraiser has to answer in November before the professional court Giessen. Plaintiff is the Hessian State Medical Association. Your Human Rights Commissioner Ernst Girth has set the procedure in motion. After receiving and reading the four similar reports from the detainees, he was "immediately aware that they had violated medical standards." Dr. Girth speaks of "Appraisal Report" - Dr. Ing. H. does not want to comment on the allegations.
Norbert Schmitt, fiscal spokesman for the Hessian SPD, has dealt intensively with the affair and is shocked: "The way in which highly committed officials were brutally bullied and made ready reminiscent of totalitarian systems." With a report application he takes the CDU Minister of Finance just again in the pliers: "The whole thing smells - and tremendous." The Ministry of Finance replies, "This accusation is outlandish, and those affected have not been bullied by anyone." There is no connection between the official ruling and the later personnel decisions.
Should the court come to the conclusion that the appraisals were actually not prepared with the required care, the case should strike even higher waves. The punishment goes from exhortation to "professional unworthiness" - which is a prohibition for Dr. med. H. would be equal. For Tina Feser, who now studies painting, this would be a fair ending: "I have always had a very strong faith in God and I am deeply convinced that there is a balance for everything you do in life."
Will the appraiser be convicted? Read here how the process went
