It’s been reported that Joerg Kerner, Porsche’s chief of powertrain development, has been SWATTED by armed (German) government workers for suspected “cheating” on the government’s emissions tests.
Porsche, of course, is part of the Audi/VW conglomerate and offered TDI diesel engines in the Cayenne SUV. These, too, have been implicated in the “cheating.”
Kerner is being held in a cage, sans bail – having been deemed a “flight risk,” according to reports. Three other “suspects” are also being investigated.
Earlier this week German prosecutors searched around 10 premises in Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg as well.
You’d think someone had been harmed.
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As every reader here already knows, this “cheating” business is a classic example of what lawyers call malum prohibitum – something which is prohibited by law. It differs in kind from malum in se – an act that is harmful regardless of the law.
“Cheating” a speed trap by using a radar detector is an example of malum prohibitum. It’s against the law. There is a statute. If you are caught, you will be punished. But there is no moral stigma – and if the statute didn’t exist, no one would feel guilty about using a radar detector (and most normal people don’t feel guilty even if there is a statute). The reason why is simple enough: The use of the radar detector doesn’t harm anyone else; it merely protects you from being harmed by an armed government worker looking to extract revenue on the basis of a statute.
VW’s “cheating” is the same thing, scaled up.
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Actually, not quite – because the “cheating” involved regulations. A statute is at least a law, passed into law by lawmakers – who are at least vaguely accountable to the people who elected them. But a regulation is a mere bureaucratic fatwa. It is literally of a piece with the religious injunctions issued by Ayatollahs. No one elected them – and no one elected the regulators who wrote the emissions rigmarole, either.
Yet the rigmarole has the force of law. As is the case with the real thing, in countries where Sharia law is the law. And the Ayatollahs who issue those fatwas will not tolerate disobedience.
As here.
Kerner – and before him, VW’s Oliver Schmidt – have been given the Full Treatment even though their “crimes” have yet to produce any tangible evidence of harm to anyone except the affronted authority of the regulatory Ayatollahs.
