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"Santa Fu", the scandalous prison in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel
Photo:
DPA
Those who were wrongly imprisoned will in future receive higher compensation from the state.
The Bundestag decided on Thursday in Berlin.
The daily flat rate will be increased from 25 to 75 euros.
The indemnity was last increased in 2009.
Even before the decision, the German Lawyers' Association demanded that victims of justice should receive 100 euros in compensation for each day of detention.
"The rule of law must also be measured by how it deals with mistakes. If it has wrongly deprived a person of his freedom, he must at least symbolically compensate for this loss," explained Edith Kindermann, president of the lawyers' association.
400 wrongly imprisoned per year
Anyone who has received an excessively high sentence in criminal proceedings or has been completely wrongly convicted is entitled to state compensation.
Those affected are also compensated from the state treasury for pre-trial detention, which in retrospect turns out to be unfounded.
On the one hand, the resulting financial loss is compensated.
On the other hand, there is the lump-sum compensation for non-material damage.
It now rises to 75 euros per commenced day of deprivation of liberty.
The same applies after a final conviction, if an acquittal occurs in a retrial or the sentence has been lifted.
The Bundestag approved a corresponding proposal by the Bundesrat.
According to the legal policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Johannes Fechner, 400 people are wrongly imprisoned in Germany each year.
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jak / dpa / AFP
