Cologne lawyer Björn Gercke, whose office for the archdiocese of Cologne presented an “independent investigation” into the abuse scandal in 2021, has been criticized for working as a lawyer for Cardinal Rainer Woelki. The transition from the “supposedly impartial” expert of the archdiocese to the defender of Woelki is not only an “obvious lack of tact”, but perhaps also a violation of professional rules, writes the deputy director of the Institute for World View Law, Jessica Hamed. in the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” (Thursday edition). The specialist lawyer and lecturer at the Mainz University of Applied Sciences stresses that lawyers are prohibited from representing conflicting interests in the same legal matter. Gercke has now explained to the Cologne prosecutor’s office that the suspicion that Woelki may have made false sworn statements about the abuses of former president “Sternsinger” Winfried Pilz was unfounded.
Asked by the newspaper, Gercke dismissed the conflict of interest allegation as absurd. He is already eliminated in terms of time, because the report had already been available for a good year and a half when Woelki was represented. The decisive factor, however, was that the content of the two ordinances differed and that they dealt with completely different legal issues.
https://www.ksta.de/koeln/woelkis-koelner-anwalt-bjoern-gercke-ist-anklaeger-und-verteidiger-zugleich-39993080
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Original content from: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, broadcast by news aktuell
Original message: https://www.presseportal.de/pm/66749/5349471
