born: 1947
married, two children
land list: Bavaria

Office in Berlin
T: +49 30 / 227 - 72006
F: +49 30 / 227 - 76003
jerzy.montag@bundestag.de

Spokesperson on legal affairs

I was born in Poland and went to school in Mannheim. After graduation, I studied Social Studies and Law in Heidelberg and Munich. I have been living and working in Bavaria for over 30 years. As a criminal lawyer I speak up for people who are in trouble or have come into conflict with the state.

I have been interested in politics since my schooldays. I was an active member of several associations and action groups for many years. I have been politically involved with Alliance 90/ The Greens for 18 years now, holding various posts. From 1998 to 2002 I was chairman of the Bavarian Greens. Since October 2002 I have been a member of the Bundestag.

As the spokesperson on legal policy for the Green parliamentary group, I plead for modern legal policy founded on basic constitutional and civil rights.

In my opinion, law is a powerful instrument in shaping society. It can serve either to prohibit or apply sanctions against certain procedures, or to allow and encourage them. With the Anti-Discrimination Act - which we are in favour of - we want to emphasise the creative element of law. We find it important that people face sanctions in civil law if they discriminate against others due to their origin, skin colour, religion or sex.

However, the power of law and thus the power of legal policy is limited. These limits can be seen in cases where reasonable and efficient legislation is already in place. Here, more rules would have no effect on people's behaviour. In the political debate about legal proposals, we therefore always have to keep the limits of law in mind.

Modern legal policy also means improving things that can be improved. One of our major modernisation plans in the current legislative period is to focus on fundamentally reforming criminal proceedings. We want to combine more effective and faster criminal proceedings with stronger rights for all parties involved.

Committees

• Committee on Legal Affairs (m.)
• EU Committee (m.)
• Committee for Electoral Scrutiny, Immunity and Procedural Rules (alt. m.)

Political career

• Member of the Green Party (since 1986)
• Chairperson of Alliance 90/The Greens in Bavaria (1998 – 2002)
• Several voluntary posts: member of the local district committee, of the Munich city council, speaker of the Bavarian Working Group on Democracy and Law
• Member of the Bundestag (since 2002)
• Speaker on legal policy for the parliamentary group in the Bundestag (2002 – 2005)