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Justitia statue in Frankfurt am Main: Criminal proceedings before regional courts last an average of two months longer than ten years ago
Photo: Arne Dedert / dpa
The number of suspects who never have to answer to criminal law, despite sometimes serious allegations, is high.
Again and again, some of them are even released from custody.
Because: The courts can't keep up with the work.
The proceedings before German criminal courts are taking longer and longer.
According to data from the Federal Statistical Office, the average duration of first-instance criminal proceedings before the regional courts rose to a new high of 8.2 months last year, the German Association of Judges complains.
In a ten-year comparison, criminal proceedings before the regional courts would have been extended by almost two months.
In the district courts, too, the average length of proceedings up to a criminal judgment increased to 5.8 months last year.
Compared to 2020, this is a further increase of half a month.
"In view of the constantly growing tasks for the judiciary, a trend reversal can only succeed with more staff," said the federal manager of the German Judges' Association, Sven Rebehn.
procedures increasingly complex
According to Rebehn, one of the reasons is that criminal proceedings are becoming more and more complex, since international references are increasing, the complexity of the law is constantly increasing and the amount of data to be evaluated in the digital world has grown.
Referring to the new annual statistics, Rebehn also told the editorial network Germany that there was a "growing number of releases from pre-trial detention due to disproportionately long procedures".
Rebehn demanded: "Nine months after taking office, the federal government must finally put concrete proposals on the table on how it wants to design the new version of the federal-state pact to strengthen the judiciary."
In the past few days, the question of the salaries of judges in Germany has also been the subject of discussions.
The EU Commission had warned that the financing of the judiciary as a whole, including salaries, should be designed in accordance with European standards.
In a European comparison, the German federal states have fared poorly so far.
The Federal Constitutional Court has also criticized this on several occasions.
Former federal judge Thomas Fischer also spoke out in this dispute this week in an article for the legal magazine "Legal Tribune Online".
He suggested rethinking the salary system as a whole and abandoning all hierarchical distinctions in salary.
Instead, there could be a “uniform salary for all judges of the same level in all instances and functions”.
This must be done at a level that “corresponds to the prominent position of the task”.
apr/dpa