In a case brought against US social network X in Germany, a regional court has decided to remove a judge from the proceedings in Berlin.
The decision came after it turned out the judge had been previously employed by one of the activist organisations that filed the suit. He had ordered X to turn over its user data to certain organisation including his former employer in a controversial decision on February 17.
The US-based company announced on February 20 that the regional court had granted its request to remove the unnamed official from the case. The proceedings against Elon Musk’s X had been brought by two German NGOs, Democracy Reporting International and the Society for Freedom Rights (GFF).
The judge had apparently been working for the latter and had also “positively engaged” with the activist organisation’s social media content, X Global Government Affairs stated on the platform.
On February 17, the Berlin Regional Court, in an “urgent injunction”, had required X to share live access to its user data on the upcoming German general election on February 23.
The two NGOs had asked the court to grant them unrestricted access to X’s real-time data on user posts, supposedly for a research project.
The case has been regarded as one of the first judicial tests for the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), an EU regulation aimed at increasing the bloc’s influence over content shared on social media.
In a statement on X on February 18, company representatives complained that the judge had not given it “any opportunity to respond or comment on the suit”.
The platform called the matter “a flagrant violation of our constitutionally guaranteed right to be heard”.
X alleged that the judge who issued the injunction had previously worked for GFF and had been a colleague of the lawyers who represented the two NGOs that were appearing before him.
“The judge’s failure to recuse himself or, at the very least, to disclose these significant links raises serious concerns about the impartiality of the decision,” the company concluded. The case will now be re-examined by a new judge.
GFF described itself as a “donor-funded organisation that defends fundamental and human rights by legal means”. It is based in Berlin.
The organisation gained notoriety in 2021 when it stated that it was constitutionally legal to introduce mandatory vaccination in the fight against Covid.
The questioning of the judge’s impartiality has been met with scorn by some German commentators. Markus Pretzell, a prominent German lawyer, called it an “unbelievable event” in an X post on February 20.
On the same platform a day later, publicist Severin Tatarczyk said the affair had further weakened his trust in the German legal system.
Brussels Signal reached out to GFF for comment but had not heard back at the time of writing.
