In the US, qualified immunity basically means that government officials are doing the discretionary parts of their jobs in good faith they are not subject to civil lawsuits unless they violate clearly established statutory law or constitutional law.

9 comments

  1. I’m far from a specialist in this field, but I can’t see how it could be other than that? If someone is just doing their job to the best of their knowledge, how can they be sued?

  2. No, qualified immunity is a seedbed for corruption. Everyone needs to be held accountable.

  3. Nope. While Ministers technically have “partial” immunity, it’s only for criminal cases but they can still be held completely accountable when “has grossly breached his duty”. Only our Monarch has complete immunity from criminal cases. But again not civil lawsuits, no one has immunity against civil lawsuits.

  4. In Italy, the President of the Republic the Ministers and the members of the Parliament have immunity.

    The President of the Republic as per Art. 90 of the Constitution is not responsible for the acts performed in the exercise of its functions with the exceptions of high treason and attack on the Constitution, for which he can be indicted by Parliament in joint session with an absolute majority and judged by the Constitutional Court.

    The Ministers (and former Ministers) have a “relative immunity” as per Art. 96 of the Constitution, which allows the judges to try a Minister for crimes that they committed while doing their job, only after the authorization from the Senate or the Chamber of Deputies.

    The members of the Parliament (Senators and Deputies) instead can be investigated and arrested in the presence of an irrevocable sentence of conviction or in the act of crime without any authorization. Though they cannot have themselves or their houses searched, their correspondence and communications intercepted and cannot be arrested (outside of the previously mentioned exception) without a previous authorization from the Chamber from which the Senator/Deputy is member of, as per Art. 68 of the Constitution.
    The members of the Parliament also cannot be called to answer for the opinions expressed and the votes cast in the exercise of their functions.

  5. Yes. Incompetence is not a crime.

    But it’s taken to absurd levels here. A government official is basically unfireable even if he piles mistake upon mistake and ruins lifes of people. The worst thing that can happen to him is slight wage reduction for few months.

  6. For the most part in the UK: no. As a recent example, the current Prime Minister was found to have broken the law related to Covid restrictions, and was given a fine for it. For the most part people in government are just normal citizens, and are treated just like everyone else.

    There’s one big exception though: the head of state. It’s far from clear if it would even be legally possible to prosecute the monarch if they broke the law. In would cause a massive constitutional crisis if this happened.

  7. Members of Parliament have rather far reaching immunity on paper but the general consensus is that parliament will waive that immunity unless it was a legitimate part of their political work. iE parliament protects its members from getting charged for defamation if iE they made a claim against an opponent or company but will waive immunity if the MP robs a bank, murders his wife or causes a traffic accident.

    Police officers do not have qualified immunity but the rule of thumb is if there are two testimonies, judges tend to trust the officers testimony a bit more. But there have been cases unless it is obvious that the officers testimony does not add up.

    There have been a few cases recently in which officers were held accountable for using excessive or unnecessary force. Then again while police violence exists, cases of police killings are extremely rare and officers tend to get scrutinized heavily afterwards.

  8. We do, but it can be removed. The minister-president of my homestate, Bodo Ramelow, got his removed one time in late 2020 or very early 2021 because he got criminal charges pressed against him by a far-right AfD member of state parliament for showing him the middle finger and later called him a “wiederlichen Drecksack” (digusting dirtbag) in a dicussion.

    At the same time the AfD state leader, Björn Höcke, also got his immunity removed because he to got charges pressed against him. Here it was because of Defamation and [Volksverhetzung](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung).

  9. Well, first of all law suits are not thrown left and right non stop here.

    And all in all it’s quite the opposite. “Public servants exercise public power which means that they must strictly comply with the law and act in a neutral, independent and impartial manner. Public servants must also observe the secrecy obligation. Citizens have the right to appeal against decisions made by authorities that concern them and file complaints if they feel that a public servant has acted incorrectly.”

    https://www.suomi.fi/citizen/rights-and-obligations/digital-support-and-administrative-services/guide/how-finlands-public-administration-works/rights-and-obligations-of-public-servants

    Of course, as long as they are not breaking any laws, there aren’t any problems

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