Because in my private life I ended up deeper and deeper into German things, I was there then Schwörmontag This year was quite in the water. The mayor of the southern German city of Ulm had planned to stand on the balcony and to promise that he would be of service to the population, but it was raining.
Now that he was not on the ‘Schwörbalkon’ of the ‘Schwörhaus’, I saw him talking in a large church via a screen. He swore his oath, told what the municipal administration had done and what it would do, after which the sun broke through and the entire population plunged into the Danube with rubber boats. But the latter, the famous ‘NaBada’, no longer belongs to my report here, because I wanted to talk about service.
Service and loyalty are beautiful, large concepts, although they may not have been defined so precisely legally. In 1397, a power struggle was settled in the city of Ulm with the establishment of a Schwör letter. From now on everyone had voting rights, they promised each other faithfully and the mayor was accountable annually. The tradition stopped around 1800, was reintroduced by the Nazis in 1933, abolished after their reign and reset. Gives Schwörmontag much about service.
Once back in the Netherlands, I was far from thought about it when I read an article in the newspaper about services on the part of our own government. It was about the Tax Authorities, which apparently in Dubio is about the task she has to fulfill for the citizen. Tax and Customs Administration balances between privacy and good serviceswas the head.
The service is called to be good, I understood, if two conditions are met. One: many fraudsters are being picked up. Two: Questions via the Tax Telephone are answered quickly. In order to be able to deal with questions and fraudsters efficiently, the Tax Authorities must have access to large amounts of data from citizens. Okay, so far we can follow it.
Unfortunately, the access to large amounts of data quickly appears to lead to ‘a careless, biased or discriminatory selection’ of taxpayers. Oh dear, discrimination and carelessness, that does not really sound like good services. But oddly enough, those Akkefietjes did not affect the judgment about the service at all. Because carelessness and discrimination fall under privacy.
Wait a minute, I thought, this has to be done again, otherwise I will not understand. So on the one hand you have good services, civil servants who pick up the phone and such, and the tax authorities are working hard on that. On the other hand, the Tax and Customs Administration has violated the privacy and possibly fundamental rights of citizens for years because of that good services, as the government agreed earlier this year. But that is a side issue.
One last time, because it just doesn’t want to go to me. The Tax and Customs Administration discriminates because citizens are happy with quick answers over the telephone. Had another newspaper headed not summarized this issue better? ‘Tax and Customs Administration balances between Article 1 of the Constitution and good services’.
While I was still staring at the newspaper, I received the message that Germany has conceived an administrative plan for a ‘Signal register. ‘ A special register for people who have changed their gender in the past. I read that Minister Alexander Dobrindt wants to make the CSU a list that makes it easier for civil servants to recognize such people.
“Die Begründung Fällt VAGE AUS“,” writes the Frankfurter Rundschau. The reason is not entirely clear, but the minister seems useful. Then at least the civil servant knows that the citizen has a past when recording the phone.
According to the bill, the gender change in the future is not only registered in the population register, but also with the pension insurance and the federal tax office. It has to do with good services, I thought, such a new one Signal register. And, well, then you don’t hear me nagging about details such as fundamental rights and such.
Still somewhat bewildered, I did my best to come to a conclusion about the difference in the world between services and service. Due to the focus on services, the underlying obligation to serviceability is easy to get out of sight, I thought. Yet that obligation does apply between citizens and office holders. What are we as members of society essentially obliged to each other? Carefulness, I think. Carefulness and as much unbelievement as possible.