Germany is the envy of many other countries for its right to freedom of expression.

But when it comes to the perception of one's own population, never before in the history of the Federal Republic has the importance of one's own opinion and the opportunity to express it been so bad as it is today.

Only 45 percent of Germans believe that they can freely express their subjective views in public.

The percentage of those who claim the opposite has increased significantly in recent years.

At 43 percent, it is also at a historic high, according to the annual representative survey by the Allensbach Institute on behalf of Roland Rechtsschutzversicherung in Cologne.

Marcus Young

Editor in Business.

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In the current "Roland Legal Report 2022", which the FAZ has received in advance before its publication this week, there is even talk of erosion.

"We are obviously seeing a long-term trend here, which has clearly intensified in the last 10 years," says Ulrich Eberhardt, CEO of Roland Rechtsschutz when asked.

The 2021 legal report shows a very clear deterioration in the mood.

"Ten years ago, two-thirds of the population still felt that freedom of expression was unrestricted, now it is less than half." Within a decade, approval for this has fallen by almost 20 percent.

Until the end of the 2000s, the value had been constantly at more than 70 percent.

A closer look at the critical feedback shows the progressive division in society.

Many respondents are not concerned with a possible violation of their fundamental rights through state intervention, but with the social sanctions they face if they violate the rules of "political correctness".

"In view of the well-known public discourse, this answer was to be expected," says Ulrich Eberhardt, CEO of Roland Rechtsschutz, when asked by the FAZ. He points out that this vote differs depending on party preferences, "especially between supporters of the Greens and the AfD". .

The fear of social sanctions

76 percent of AfD supporters agreed that you have to be careful in current debates.

On the other hand, 65 percent of Greens sympathizers are of the opinion that one can continue to make one's opinion known;

the supporters of all other parties represented in the Bundestag range here in a narrow corridor between 42 and 47 percent - but only every seventh AfD voter wants to join them.

The possible effects of the corona pandemic were also taken into account in the survey period in December 2021 - i.e. at the beginning of the booster campaign of the new traffic light coalition and before the sharp increase in infections in the omicron wave: while the opinions in the camp of the vaccinated are balanced hold, the unvaccinated and vaccine skeptics clearly tend towards restricted freedom of expression.

As the study authors write, this group increasingly feels they represent minority opinions that are widely criticized by the public and the media.

"The camps differ not only in the obligation to vaccinate, but also in trust in social institutions," writes Renate Köcher, Managing Director of the Allensbach Institute in the foreword of the study.

However, this basic skepticism cannot be transferred to the more general part of the survey on trust in the German legal system.

Furthermore, 70 percent of respondents have a lot of trust in the law and the work of the courts;

In particular, the work of the administrative courts in the past two years of the pandemic may have contributed to this.

According to Eberhardt, almost a third of the population can still be viewed as critical of the judiciary in the broadest sense.

The board of directors of the legal protection insurer cites the often still lacking handling of legal tech applications as one reason.

“The popularity of alternative algorithmic solutions is growing with the younger generation in the general population, and fast.

At the same time, the willingness to accept classic legal offers as an alternative to computer-aided solutions is dramatically low,” explains Eberhardt.

In the age group up to 44 years, for example, a two-thirds majority is approaching to regulate legal matters without lawyers.

Across all age groups, only 27 percent would prefer dispute resolution exclusively through lawyers.