Ronald Schill

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Ronald Barnabas Schill (born November 23 1958 in Hamburg)) is a former judge, the founder of the German political parties Partei Rechtsstaatlicher Offensive (also called PRO or Schill-Partei) and Pro DM/Schill. He has also served as a senator in the government of Hamburg from 2001 to 2003.

Schill started his career as a judge at an ,"Amtsgericht" in Hamburg from 1993 to 2001. Due to his controversial rulings as a judge, which frequently involved the maximum penalty, he was given the nickname "Richter Gnadenlos" ("judge merciless"); most of these rulings were overruled by higher courts later on.

His new-found right-conservative party managed to gain 19.4% of all votes in the elections for Hamburg's parliament, the Bürgerschaft, on September 23 2001. Following the elections, his party entered into a coalition government with the CDU led by Ole von Beust. Schill became second mayor of Hamburg and senator for inner affairs; among other things, he announced that he would lower crime rates by 50% within 100 days, an undertaking which remained unsuccessful.

As a politician, Schill managed to get considerable media attention with his radical positions; among other things, he spoke out for the legalization of cannabis, demanded that sex offenders who did not respond to therapy be castrated, and stated that parents who failed to bring up their children "the right way" should be jailed. Furthermore, following the siege of the Moscow theater in October 2002, where 129 of 800 hostages where killed by nerve gas, he proposed that similar gas should be used by German police to fight terrorism.

Shortly after assuming office, Schill was anonymously accused of cocaine abuse. He voluntarily underwent hair analysis which did not yield any evidence of cocaine consumption, and after the findings had been made public, the prosecution authorities stopped their proceedings against Schill.

Schill managed to cause a stir and a wave of indignation throughout the whole of Germany when he spoke in front of the Bundestag, Germany's federal parliament, in the final session of the 14th Bundestag on August 29, 2002. In his speech, he said that the victims of the Elbe flood would not be able to be compensated due to too much money being given to foreign countries; he also berated politicians of all parties, his speech culminating in the words "We (in Germany) without doubt [...] have the most capable people, but the most incompetent politicians" ("Wir haben (in Deutschland) ohne Zweifel die tüchtigsten Menschen, aber [...] die unfähigsten Politiker").^[1] He further reviled politians by stating that they wasted money, went through the world with a "goblet of charity" to give away German tax money, brought refugees into the country and build "glamourous solitary cells" for prisoners; after accusing the parliament's vice president Anke Fuchs of violating the constitution, already over his time quota, he first was warned, then asked to finish his speech, and finally had the microphone turned off 15 minutes after the end of his timeshare.^[2]

He then made headlines again when another government official, Walter Wellinghausen, who held the office of a Staatsrat and was supported by Schill, was accused of illegally having a second employment in summer 2003; finally, Schill was removed from office by first mayor Ole von Beust (CDU) on August 19, 2003, due to "not being qualified (for the position) with regard to his character" ("charakterlich nicht geeignet").

This was preceded by a private discussion between von Beust and Schill, in which von Beust announced his intent to remove Wellinghausen from office. According to von Beust, Schill then threatened to make public an alleged love affair between von Beust and judiciary senator Roger Kusch (CDU), which would have resulted in a conflict of interests on von Beust's side.

Schill, on the other hand, told the press that he only had appealed to von Beust to not apply double standards, claiming that he mentioned the case of his fellow party member Mario Mettbach, who cancelled his decision to hire his significant other as an abstractor; he further stated that this collided with von Beust's making Kusch a senator and that the public had a right to be informed about these issues. Kusch publicly admitted to being homosexual soon afterwards; von Beust, however, did not comment further on his sexuality, pointing out that his sexual orientation was a private issue alone.

Schill's removal from office was appreciated by many organizations, including the churches and the police union, even though Schill continued to be a member of Hamburg's Bürgerschaft.

On December 6, 2003, the federal executive board of the Partei Rechtsstaatlicher Offensive, led by Mario Mettbach, removed Schill from his office as the party's chairman for Hamburg and denied him the right to assume further offices in the party. In response, Schill publicly ridiculed the party's executive board, stating that he could just as well have been removed from office by his haircutter.

Three days later, von Beust declared the coalition of CDU, FDP and Schill Party to be terminated and asked the parliament to order new elections. Another week later, on December 16, 2003, the Schill Party's federal executive board decided to expel Schill from the party; at the time of this writing, Schill has not yet decided whether to challenge this decision at the party's court of arbitration.

On December 18, 2003, Schill, together with five former members of the Schill Party faction in the Bürgerschaft, formed a new faction; his former partner, Katrin Freund, was elected chairwoman. He announced that if he did not manage to get 5% of all votes in the forthcoming parliamentary elections (and thus not be present in the new parliament), he would emigrate from Germany.^[3]

In the elections, on February 29, 2004, his group won only 3.1% of the votes^[4]. He confirmed that he would emigrate, "probably to South America."^[5] In fall 2004, he emigrated to Cuba.

In late 2006, Hamburg police issued a search warrant for Schill, as he is to testify as a witness in front of a Hamburg state parliament board of inquiry. As of December 2006, Schill is thought to be in the Rio de Janeiro area.^[6]