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Do you remember Richter Gnadenlos , a creature from the zombie cellar of "Bild Hamburg"? The dazzling container visitors and later Spätaussiedler temporarily closed friendship with Ole von Beust, appeared as weather lights on the eve of the dream couple Brandner / Weidel, but then tangled in stupid. That was a long time ago, dear children, but the shock is still in our bones.
Now "Bild" could have found a legitimate offspring of the great hamburger: In Dinslaken, a city in the district of Wesel near Duisburg, was found at the local district court a "hard-hitting judge", an iron-hard guy. The Riva-Verlag from Munich has thrown the thoughts of the judge at the district court Thorsten Schleif under the title "judgment: unfair" on the country (Thorsten Schleif, judgment: unfair, Riva-Verlag Munich 2019, 208 p., 19.99 euros) After in the same house already judge Stephan Zantkes title "If Germany is so shit, then why are you here?" went well.
Mr. Schleif is responsible at the district court in Dinslaken for aldermen, criminal judge matters letters A to K and juvenile justice; a matter that, as he tells us, is extremely "simple" and, given the right basic attitude, makes little effort: "Every human being - not just a judge - must be able to judge a situation by criminal law" (p. 149). Unfortunately, the battalions of failures, careerists, idiots and cowards who have been surrounded by Knallhart-Richter Schleif know that. And that leads straight to where it must lead: "The third state authority stands one step before the abyss" (p. 195). This sound reminds us of Jens Gnisa , the director of the district court Bielefeld and chairman of the German judge federation (DRB), which in 2017 with the work "the end of the justice" (Herder publishing house, 288 S., 24,00 euro) after us threw and was quite offended when I reviewed him rather critically. For him, the lawyers preferred to blame for the crash, while for Schleif, the judges are. But it does not matter anyway - the main thing is the downfall threatens. Even Patrick Burow , magistrate in Dessau-Roßlau, can not be lumped there: "Justice on the abyss, a judge accuses" (Verlag LangenMüller, 2018, 208 pp., 22 euros).
Without an apocalypse, it appears that the publishing magistrate can no longer look forward to his sad situation and the general state of affairs in Germany: collapse, loss of trust, loss of quality, injustice and arbitrariness everywhere, and the judiciary no longer mistresses the flood ! Because it helps - we know it from countless releases of the genre "How everything is getting worse" - just "a courageous and relentless look" (blurb) and the popular "alarm beating": A judge "reveals", "settles", " makes alarm "," judges that the judiciary fails "," unpacks "," hits the nerve of the times "," settles with the cuddly justice ", etc., etc. - these are a few samples of media headlines about the work of the Dinslaken Terminator.
The alarm strike in the 200-Seiten-Takt got until a few years ago traditionally more professionals from the task forces of Commissioner Rainer Wendt ("Germany in danger", Riva-Verlag 2017, 192 p., 9.99 euros) or Tania Kambouri ("Germany in the blue light: emergency call of a policewoman ", Piper publishing house 2015, 224 S., 10 euro); also original "Staranwälte" as Ingo Lenßen ("Injustice in the name of the people," Gräfe & Unzer publishers 2019, 192 p., 19.99 euros) or Burkhardt Benecken ("Screaming unfair - everyday judicial scandals in Germany", Riva-Verlag 2019 , 304 p., 19.99 euros). Of course, judges can do that too. Several years ago several publishers wanted to win me over with the following (not invented!) Offer: "Formulate some steep thesis and write down 200 pages along the way and we'll get it in shape." We can do the book in three months. "
The abyss
What would the brave magistrate from Dinslaken say to us? He stands, on the cover of the book and in the "BamS", in robe, white longbinder and with court records under his arm in front of the portal of the district court and stares at us, as if he wants to ask if we have problems and need one on his mouth. That is certainly not meant. Whether it is intelligent or perhaps a bit unlawful duty, demonstratively in official capacity and adorned with the insignia of the judiciary to announce that the German criminal justice system is completely dominated by failures, let's leave it open.
"A judge reveals why our judiciary fails," reads the subtitle. Mr Schleif, we learn, works in ordinary justice, that is civil and criminal law. The rest he calls "messy", a classic that goes through every colorful evening in the retirement home as a humor bomb.
Before the author tells us whether and how the judiciary fails and how he has recognized this, he tells us for 138 pages why she fails. The reason is simple and familiar to any experienced troublemakers: The judiciary consists - with a few exceptions, which are found, for example, at the district court Dinslaken - predominantly from idiots, Schleimscheißern, Arschkriechern, lazybones, non-willers and cowards. Let's put it this way with the author: Nine out of ten judges, the "typical" ones, are disciplined, have a great need for comfort, a morbid desire for power and a pronounced lack of self-confidence (p. 113 ff., 121).
Would you have thought that studying law in Germany is practically useless because it deals with "digestion exegesis" rather than the file entry of magistrates? Did you know that as a trainee lawyer you learn nothing, but nothing useful at all, and even abused for keeping a record, which really can not provide any information about the criminal proceedings? Did you know that a decent working magistrate - for example in Dinslaken - does as many cases per week as a district court judge in one year (ten), even though the procedures are not a bit more difficult there? (P .)? On the other hand, the regional courts need "twice as long" for their procedures as the local courts (p. 147). However you solve this math puzzle, it still remains that at the district court at least half of the year, criminal judges simply do not work at all .
Surely you want to know where the reason for this unbelievable, unknown to the public for decades scandal lies: almost exclusively with the lazy, anxious, career-mad Strafkammervorsitzenden whose abilities are usually alone to delay proceedings, delay decisions and stress (S 149). The month-round completely meaningless, superfluous verdict with 1000 pages "pinching", where given the simplicity of the criminal law a few pages would be enough.
Even worse, as the experienced 39-year-old district judge knows, the chairmen of the appeal chambers at the district court (p. 184 ff.). They do not deceive themselves to change the all right judgments of judge Schleif on appeal of defendants. Obviously out of pettiness, cowardice before the enemy and lack of sovereignty. And since the application of criminal law does not pose a "legal-intellectual challenge" (p. 149), the superfluous criminal tribunals deal with "consulting" for many hours on the question of whether it is "because" or "there" in a judgment. to be called (p. 147).
The hell
It comes even harder: Judge Knallhart buttoned before the administration of justice, of the past Minister Mueller-Piepenkötter , one - in the view of the judge and modestly circumscribed - mendacious careerist, the presidents, vice presidents, directors to the "presidential judges", ie judges who temporarily perform administrative tasks in the courts with part of their workforce. This is a Richter Schleif particularly hated kind of "adapted Jasager" who write appraisal drafts, sneak around the clock with the respective president and snatch away high-ranking magistrates, for example at the district court Dinslaken, although they have as much idea of the right as one Sausage factory worker from surgery (p. 66).
The longer one reads the howl of Judge Schleif, who "wants to serve the people" (p. 201), but since his 14 years ago transfer from a large law firm to the judicial service (the motive remains in the dark) is maliciously prevented, the more it grows suspicious that once a magistrate from Dinslaken, temporarily seconded to the trial at the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf, applied for a promotion agency in accordance with his genius, which, surprisingly, was not awarded to him. On page 116 the time has come: The hero reveals to us that he has filed an appeal against an assessment. Because "I would never sell my conviction for promotion, which sets me apart from most judges in the judicial administration."
Thus, the incorruptible falls traumatized into the abyss. On the previous fall path he has learned that the head of the authorities are firstly "superfluous" (p. 68) and secondly "usually have a very low self-esteem" (p. 69). You just have to tackle them properly: When the newly hired testimonial officer Schleif was once assigned a clerk as a clerk, he said: "Point out to the president: If anyone in this court thinks he can intimidate me, then he underestimates me fundamentally. " That's the way to do it.
Overall, the judiciary, says Schleif, states that it achieves "no significant work results", which means it is simply useless. This is what they have in common with the Deutscher Richterbund, a professional representation of judges and prosecutors, more precisely: "a heap of lamentable whiner" (p. 135) with "morbid megalomania" (p. 136). Perhaps it is such analyzes that Schleif and his publisher call "courageous". Because otherwise one can discover in the alarm book far and wide nothing, what this attribute could earn.
The "courage" that requires everyone else to be stupid, to consider himself a hero and the judiciary for a bunch of failures "on the brink" is approaching under the constant rattle of similarly-tuned judges mercilessly and a vocal squad of alert professionals from the legal Intellectual level of Messrs. Brandner and Meier clearly the zero line. Will say: A look in Germany's "largest" newspaper, on the Internet or in the Aufdeckformate of TV is enough to determine that really hardly something requires as little courage as the claim that prevail in Germany, the law chaos, triumph the crime and could the citizens hardly expect to survive this year's Christmas shopping untarnished, unsaved and unshaken. It is one of the great secrets of such screaming necks that they spend their angstschlotternde panic as a culmination of courage and probably believe even themselves.
The Failure
Thus, after the causes of the disaster have been explained, we ourselves have arrived at failure. What is it that awaits us in the abyss? What exactly is the failure that is "getting worse", "accelerated", "barely sustainable"? What has happened since the reign of injustice broke over Germany like the locust over the Pharaoh and the foreigner child over the elementary school?
There are mistakes and scandalous judgments. A misjudgment is, so Schleif, the condemnation of an innocent. The book mentions two (Arnold and Mollath); The yield is therefore rather lean. However, judges at the BGH Ralf Eschelbach should not be missing, which is twice quoted by Schleif with the decade sentence, it was "estimated 25 percent of all convictions wrong judgments". Now, the colleague Eschelbach, with whom I sat for years in the same senate of the BGH, although occasionally tends to effervescent formulations, but not to nonsense. His hundredfold misleading sentence concerned - as much source research may be - his "estimate" of how many judgments "legal error" (in the sense of § 337 StPO) contained, but on which the judgment is not "based" - so did not affect and therefore do not touch the correctness of the result . Since then, poor Eschelbach has been cited by people who have no idea as the highest court evidence that in one quarter of all German convictions innocent people are convicted or guilty parties are unlawfully favored. That is, in short, stupid stuff.
From "scandal" judgments, if I understand Judge Schleif correctly, there is a large part of the criminal justice: it is penalties that are so lenient, "that they contradict the natural sense of justice of lawyers and non-lawyers alike" so that expert jurists (eg Mr. Schleif ) "have considerable difficulty in understanding the result" (p. 15).
Well, experts for the "natural" sense of justice were there at all times and in all places in large numbers. If Richter Schleif had attended some of the "pointless" legal history events while studying, he would know that this is a matter of "nature" and "justice" and "feeling." In the practice of the courageous magistrate, it may seem fair enough to justify 75 percent of the usual sentence. Maybe that's the nature of Mr. Schleif. He certainly also finds a lot of fair non-lawyers. Whether so Dinslaken comes out of the abyss, but still remains questionable. Unfortunately, Richter Schleif does not spoil us with statistics about his outstanding control results.
In addition, one must say that even nature can not substitute a degree of legal knowledge, even if the people of Dinslaken disagree. Therefore, if Richter Schleif proudly reports for a while, as he once, after three other courts had granted probation for a new trial by Schleif once sentenced to probation, revoked a suspended sentence because the convicted had "violated the condition, nothing more can be done ", the lawyer says, because he has not even heard of such a" circulation ". A look into the law shows that in § 56b StGB (conditions for parole) of it is nothing. An "obligation not to let anyone guilt" is, according to the law, not only nonsensical, but not at all permissible: the probation prognosis presupposes that anyway. Judge Schleif looked again in the old file: "My probation was clear" (p. 176). This may be. However, probably clearly wrong. That is sometimes the case with natural justice.
Otherwise, there are the usual five "scandal" stories that are known from the press in recent years. However, with a special Dinslakener touch: "What does one think, who drives a race with tuned vehicles in the city center?" He thinks: It will be okay? ... Or he thinks: I do not give a damn? ... What do you mean, something like that Racer thinks, oh how interesting, that's what I mean "(p.161). Here we experience Judge Knallhart, jury chairman in Fantasialand, in the nature-based evidence in the murder trial! Who needs proof if he has a conviction?
Also nice: Harald, in his 40s, gives two 14-year-old girls "a small amount of marijuana". Moreover, he is still an immoral SM-friend, so far does nothing banned. Judge Schleif holds out the prospect of giving BtM to minors: three and a half years imprisonment. It turns out Harald was fined 90 days by the court. "Has the book just fallen out of your hand?" Asks Schleif (p. 167). It is one of the great courage proofs of criminal law, cases of others, in whose negotiation one was not there at a later time to try again and to decide correctly . Normally, this is done by a volunteer army of letterhead and Twitter writers, but that can be done as well.
And so it goes on and on: cuddly justice, buttery judgments, failing cowards, where the hard-hitting judge's eye falls. Solution: Abolish administration, abolish appeal, promote the right people (especially in Dinslaken). But the rest of Schleif's brave demands are DRB-ready. Perhaps the elected presidium of his court will have a look and assign him a task that corresponds to his legal-intellectual horizon.
What the hell?
The work discussed is only an example, rather a symptom, albeit an unusually clear one. It is not consistently "wrong" like others of its kind. Of course there are weaknesses, structural misunderstandings and undesirable developments in criminal justice. They are neither brand new, nor have they exploded, as is often claimed. Above all, they are not so rudimentary and one-dimensional that they can be represented, explained or solved with a few steep theses and 200 pages of ranting. If so, it could be anyone, even Richter Schleif. It is always amazing that people come up with "analyzes" or "proposed solutions" that are so primitive and simple that even the most ignorant could immediately see through and apply them at a glance.
Unfortunately, there is no doubt that even this "scream of alarm" will again find believers who tell us on all channels, that only Judge Schleif, or even better, would have to let her run, so that again an order is in Germany. No matter how high the penalties, how long the penalties, how boundless the criminal laws and how far the police powers become: The abyss will yawn ever deeper, before which the disciples of the "courageous gaze" are so afraid. Their somewhat simple-minded shouting comes before you like the proposal to reduce the number of car accidents and deaths by simply driving all faster : then they are already gone before the accident happens.
