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Calling a police officer ‘dude’ is a punishable offence in Austria

An Austrian football fan learnt the hard way that it’s not the done thing to be too familiar with a police officer.

Published: 10 February 2017 16:20 CET
Calling a police officer 'dude' is a punishable offence in Austria
Photo: Paul Gillingwater

According to a federal court, calling a policeman ‘Oida', an Austrian/Bavarian dialect word which roughly translates as ‘dude’ or ‘man’, is a punishable offence.

The incident occurred at a football stadium in Pasching in Upper Austria. The fan in question had hung a banner in front of the stadium, and a police officer told him to take it down. The fan replied “let it go, dude”. The officer filed a report, saying that the man had spoken to him disrespectfully, and he was ordered to pay a fine of €100 by the local district authority.

The fan contested the fine, and took the case to the Regional Court of Appeal, arguing that ‘Oida’ is a normal and acceptable slang word used by young people. The court looked into the origins of the word ‘Oida’ and found that it comes from the Viennese word ‘Hawara’, meaning friend or crony. It ruled that the word is not appropriate to use when speaking to a police officer, as the police are not friends or cronies of the general public.

The court did not say whether addressing an officer with the Viennese word ‘Kieberer’, a slang word used to describe a policeman, is also a punishable offence.

The court said that the use of such words depends on the situation, and that what is inappropriate in one situation could be fine in another. However, the judge said that in the case in question the choice of words was inappropriate. He ruled that the man be given a warning, and said that as the offence was only minor the €100 fine should be dropped. 

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POLICE

Why are Vienna’s police officers trying to get away from the capital?

Austria's Ministry of Interior is grappling with a surge in police transfer requests from Vienna. Police unions have warned the situation is worsening morale and contributing to staffing shortages.

Published: 3 September 2024 16:53 CEST
Why are Vienna's police officers trying to get away from the capital?

A growing number of police officers in Vienna are applying for transfers to other federal states, but lengthy waiting times have frustrated many. 

According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI), 580 civil servants in Vienna have submitted transfer requests, for a total of 799 across Austria. Despite these applications, the waiting list is long, and it can take several years, or even more than a decade, for a transfer to be approved.

Newspaper Kurier reported on one such case. Alex M (the officer asked to remain anonymous, the report said) is a Vienna police officer waiting 13 years to transfer to another state. M. initially applied for a transfer to Lower Austria but also to a second federal state without success. “Every year, you only move up a few places. It’s very gruelling,” he told the newspaper.

READ ALSO: How Austria wants to attract more police officers

Why are officers ‘fleeing’?

Kurier said the primary reason for M.’s desire to transfer is the overwhelming amount of overtime required in Vienna, a complaint voiced by other officers. Police officers in the capital logged over 2.2 million overtime hours last year alone, with some, like M., working up to 140 extra hours per month, Kurier said. 

Most police officers in Vienna come from other federal states, and many wish to return to their home regions after a few years of service. However, the high number of transfer requests and the limited availability of positions in other states mean that only a few requests are approved yearly.

‘It’s important to come clean’

Police unions have expressed concerns about the impact of these long waits on morale and the broader staffing crisis in Vienna.

Walter Strallhofer, a police unionist, criticised the unrealistic expectations set during recruitment. “Police students from the federal states are promised during recruitment that they will soon be able to leave Vienna. But that’s not true. It’s important to come clean with people. When you come to Vienna, you stay here for at least the next ten years.”, he said.

READ ALSO: When are police officers in Austria allowed to use their weapons?

Exceptions to the long wait times are made only in cases of social hardship, such as serious illness of family members. 

The BMI is exploring options to speed up the transfer process, including adjusting admission quotas to accommodate more officers from states with high transfer request numbers.

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