Enlarge image
Frank-Walter Steinmeier: Signature despite doubts
Photo: via www.imago-images.de / imago images / Political-Moments
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has expressed doubts about a law to reopen criminal proceedings for the most serious crimes.
The law was passed by the Bundestag and Bundesrat.
As the Federal President's Office announced, Steinmeier signed the law amending the code of criminal procedure.
"In view of the considerable constitutional concerns, however, I suggest submitting the law to a new parliamentary review and deliberation," he wrote to Bundestag President Bärbel Bas, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Bundesrat President Bodo Ramelow.
The reform will make it possible in future to reopen criminal trials for the most serious crimes such as murder, genocide and crimes against humanity, even if they previously ended with an acquittal.
The prerequisite is that there is new evidence and that a conviction of the acquitted is likely.
New incriminating information can emerge through new investigation methods and advances in digital forensics.
However, there are constitutional issues that are being dealt with in dispute in case law and literature, Steinmeier wrote in his letter, according to the President's Office. He sees "at least some of these doubts confirmed after detailed discussions with constitutional and criminal law experts." So there are concerns because no one should be punished several times for the same act. According to the general opinion, this requirement of the Basic Law also protects against any further criminal prosecution after acquittal or the judicial suspension of proceedings.
In addition, it is doubtful whether the law is compatible with the so-called non-retroactivity rule. "With the expansion of the grounds for retrial in the case of murder, genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes against a person, acquittals would be called into question retrospectively," Steinmeier argued, according to the presidential office. "In the future, the acquitted would see themselves in the situation that their acquittal would subsequently be in limbo."
The former president of the German Lawyers' Association, Ulrich Schellenberg, who started the initiative #Nicht Two times against the law, was delighted with Steinmeier's decision. It is true that he »regrets« that Steinmeier »did not ultimately renounce the execution of the law«. But he was happy about "the extraordinary clarity and directness with which the Federal President raised the constitutional concerns." The traffic light coalition is now "well advised to take up these concerns." This should also happen as quickly as possible, because as soon as the law has been published in the Federal Gazette, the first arrests of defendants who have been finally acquitted can be expected. This applies in particular to Ismet H., the alleged murderer of Frederike von Möhlmann,whose father has been fighting for this reason for resumption for decades, and whose case was the driving force behind the reform.
Also the former Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP), who Steinmeier initially asked in an open letter together with the initiative #Nichtzweimal not to draft the law, and recently suggested in SPIEGEL to wait at least with one copy so that the The Bundestag, who was able to deal with it again, was nevertheless satisfied: "This is a clear mandate to the legislature to examine it again." This "opens the way to officially repeal".
The Berlin constitutional lawyer Stefan Aust described Steinmeier's letter as "very remarkable", that it was "something that happens very rarely".
Steinmeier also "articulated his doubts very clearly," said the law professor, who himself, as an expert in the legislative process, had described the regulation as unconstitutional.
Above all, the fact that the Federal President "comes to such a request to the legislature is really unusual and can now basically not be ignored".
Union faction contradicts Steinmeier
The Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag rejected Steinmeier's constitutional concerns. "The vast majority of the experts at the public hearing of the Legal Committee of the German Bundestag had expressly confirmed the constitutionality of the law," said their legal policy spokesman, Günter Krings. This view is shared by "almost all recent scientific treatises."
The deputy chairman of the Union parliamentary group, Andrea Lindholz, recalled that the SPD had supported the current law in the Groko and warned the traffic light government against going back "behind this state of affairs that has now finally been achieved".
The new law clears the way for the possibility of allowing proceedings to be resumed "in special extreme cases".
"For the relatives who have previously had to live next to acquitted defendants, even though subsequent evidence clearly speaks in favor of their perpetration, this is a late but overdue justice."
ptz / hip / dpa / AFP