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After viewing the chat history, the Ministry of Justice lowered the rating from three (secret) to one. This means that, in addition to sensitive parts, they can also be discussed in public.
The chat processes between Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) and his then Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache (FPÖ) that were sent to the Ibiza-U Committee on Wednesday are not entirely “secret”. The Ministry of Justice has reduced the confidentiality level from 3 to 1: this means that chats are classified as “restricted” and, with the exception of only sensitive parts, can also be discussed in public.
“Unfortunately” undisclosed reasons
The Ministry of Justice announced in a broadcast on Friday afternoon that chats must be classified with level 3, both from the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation. But “due to an oversight by the transmitting authority” “unfortunately” the necessary disclosure of the reasons for the classification had not been made. So Section V (individual criminal cases) carried out a sighting itself.
“This examination led to the result that the disclosure of the information contained in the documents, in the opinion of the Federal Ministry of Justice, would not create the risk of harming protected interests in the sense of the law,” informed the Ministry spokeswoman, Christina . Ratz. Therefore, the documents were classified as level 1 (“restricted”). The talks were presented to Parliament on Friday afternoon. The opposition had harshly criticized Kurz-Strache’s classification of SMS as “secret”.
The four levels of secrecy of documents
There are four levels of confidentiality for the documents made available to U-committees. If they are classified as “restricted”, they can still be discussed with the trial judge by decision of the U-Committee chairman in public session; only sensitive parts should be omitted. The rest of the information in the document is not subject to any obligation of confidentiality. Level 2 “confidential” applies to a document if there is a risk of damaging interests when it is published. Documents are classified as “secret” at level 3 if there is a threat of “considerable damage” to interests, such as a threat to human life. The highest level, “top secret”, is awarded if the publication threatens to seriously harm public interests, such as the immediate loss of many human lives or long-term damage to the Austrian economy.
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