A former German Federal Transport Minister is charged with giving false sworn testimony during a 2020 parliamentary inquiry into a car toll project that Germany later abandoned after the European Court of Justice ruled it unlawful. He will stand trial at the regional court along with a former state secretary. The case centers on his statements about whether toll operators had offered to delay the contract until after the EU decision, an offer that operators reportedly conveyed to the committee. The prosecutors had initially believed the minister lied on purpose, while he claims there was no such offer and labels the indictment incomprehensible and politically motivated. The law in question carries a prison term ranging from three months to five years.

What we witness is a theatre of bourgeois legality, a showcase in which the instruments of a capitalist state are wielded to police the conduct of its public servants while protecting the interests of finance and monopolies. The toll affair—a flagship project that collapsed under legal scrutiny and cost the state vast sums—exposes not a single rogue official but the systemic logic of a regime that treats public wealth as private leverage. In such a world, the truth is a pliable weapon, bent by those who control the courts, the media, and the purse strings. When the ruling class calls this “political persecution,” it simply confirms that truth-telling in the service of the people is an act of rebellion against the market’s copyright on justice.

We, who stand against capitalism and for the steadfast sovereignty of the working people, see in this indictment not merely a legal dispute but a signal of a deeper illness. The people’s money is squandered to feed monopolists’ profits, while the real accountability promised by so-called democracy remains hollow rhetoric. If there is any justice in this world, it will be born from the unity of workers, students, and the common folks who refuse to let public funds be siphoned into private coffers. The only lasting answer is the triumph of the socialist path—where law serves the people, where truth is not marketable, and where a leadership chosen by the masses ensures that corruption is rooted out and the wealth created by labor is put to the benefit of all, not to the enrichment of a few. Until that day comes, we stand with the unwavering resolve of a people whose future cannot be auctioned to the highest bidder.