The parties involved in the proceedings were council member Franz-Josef Wegener and a Warburg company. As reported several times, Franz-Josef Wegener was sued by the company for failure to make dishonorable statements. The two company bosses are chalking the councilor for having made derogatory comments about the management and their workforce in the non-public part of a council meeting on November 19, 2019. Hubertus Herbold was initially named as a witness. He has already been warned orally at a council meeting.
According to press officer Dr. Amrei Stocksmeyer, after taking evidence on Monday, the court did not come to the conclusion that the defendant had actually made the statements against him in the non-public part of the meeting. However, it was up to the plaintiff to provide appropriate evidence, explained Dr. Amrei Stocksmeyer.
The wording of Wegener’s statement remains unclear
But even after seven testimony from council members and the former mayor of Borgentreich Rainer Rauch, all of whom had participated in the said council meeting, the exact procedure in the non-public part remained unclear for the court. The witnesses only agreed that they could not remember the wording of Wegener’s statement. Rainer Rauch also does not want to have noticed Wegener’s disparaging remark, as he said.
In the complaint, the Warburg attorney Alexander Jakobs had requested on behalf of his clients that Wegener refrain from claiming that the managing directors are alcoholics and that the entire workforce has an alcohol problem under the threat of a fine (250,000 euros) or custody. The reason for Wegener’s alleged speech was the question of whether the council should accept the invitation to an event organized by the company, which the council ultimately “unanimously” rejected according to the minutes.
The defendant Franz-Josef Wegener had emphasized at the end of the court hearing that he would never personally accuse anyone of having alcohol problems – “that would be measured,” as he explained.
Judgment not yet final
The judgment of the administrative court in Minden is not final. The two bosses of the Warburg company now have one month to apply for an appeal against the judgment at the Higher Administrative Court. At the request of this newspaper, the company’s managing directors left it open whether they would go this way. Both the workforce and management would, however, take civil action against Franz-Josef Wegener, both company bosses announced to this newspaper.
The Minden Administrative Court was ultimately responsible for the lawsuit because the Borgentreich Council as such was involved. This also explains why the city council had granted both Franz-Josef Wegener and Hubertus Herbold, who had chatted from the non-public part of the meeting, legal costs, as ex-Mayor Rainer Rauch had explained to the court.
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