Federal Court of Justice of Germany

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The “Federal Court of Justice of Germany” (German: “Bundesgerichtshof” or “BGH”) is the highest court in the system of ordinary jurisdiction (“ordentliche Gerichtsbarkeit”) in Germany, which makes it the court of last resort in all matters of criminal and civil law. A decision handed down by the BGH can only be reversed by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany in rare cases of unconstitutionality.

Contents 1 History 2 Organisation and functions 3 Judges 3.1 Vice Presidents 3.2 Presiding Judges 3.3 Judges 4 Lawyers 5 Publication of decrees 6 External links 7 References

History

Before the Federal Court of Justice of Germany was created in its present form, Germany has had several prior highest courts:

As early as 1495 there was the so called “Reichskammergericht”, that existed until 1806. As from 1870 —in the time of the North German Confederation— there was the “Bundesoberhandelsgericht” in Leipzig. Later, in 1871, it was renamed to “Reichsoberhandelsgericht” and its area of responsibility was amplified as well.^[1] This court was unsoldered by the “Reichsgericht” at the 1st October 1879, which was also in Leipzig.^[2] Five years after the German Reich had collapsed, the “Bundesgerichtshof” —as it exists nowadays— was founded.^[3]

Together with the Federal Administrative Court of Germany, the Federal Finance Court of Germany, the Federal Labor Court of Germany and the Federal Social Court of Germany, the Federal Court of Justice is one of the highest courts of Germany today, located in Karlsruhe and Leipzig. ^[4]

Organisation and functions

In order to fulfill its functions, which are explained below, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany is subdivided in twenty-five senates:

Twelve of them are the civil panels (“Zivilsenate”), five additional ones are the criminal panels (“Strafsenate”) and the eight remaining ones are special panels. ^[5]

The general function of the Federal Court of Justice is to save the uniformity of the jurisdiction on the one side, and to do law-development on the other side. So usually it just reconsiders the legal assessment of a case as a court of last resort. ^[6] To that effect the following legal-sections can be differentiated in the area of responsibility of the Federal Court of Justice:

In the civil law it takes action by reconsidering decrees of the regional courts (“Landgericht”) and of the regional appeal courts (“Oberlandesgericht”). In some special cases they also reconsider first-instance decrees of the local courts (“Amtsgericht”) and the regional courts. Here it can decide that an application for revision is improper —then the application gets discarded— or that it is valid – then it has to decide about the case. ^[7]

In the criminal law it has to decide about applications for revision against first-instance decrees of the regional courts (e. g. Murder-delicts) and of the regional appeal courts (for example in state security delicts). Here it has to decide whether an application is blatantly reasonless or whether it is blatantly reasonable in support of the defendant. In both of these cases it can decide without a main trial. In any other case, it has to decide about the legal remedy after a main trial. ^[8]

Finally it decides about the so-called “Vorlagesachen” (approximately: submission cases): If a regional appeal court plans to differ from a decision of another regional appeal court or from one of the Federal Court of Justice, it has to inform the Federal Court of Justice about that, which has to decide finally about this case. This is to save the homogeneity of the jurisdiction. ^[9]

Judges

Judges of the Federal Court of Justice are elected by an electoral committee, which consists of 16 Justice Secretaries and of 16 people, who were elected by the Bundestag. After the judge has been elected by this committee, he is appointed by the President of Germany. Just people who are Germans within the meaning of the Art. 116 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany and have the ability for judgeship according to the §9 DRiG and are finally at least 35 years old can be appointed to a judge at the Federal Court of Justice. ^[10]

Presidents ^[11]

order	name	took office	left office
1	Hermann Weinkauff (1894–1981)	1 October 1950	31 March 1960
2	Bruno Heusinger (1900–1987)	1 April 1960	31 March 1968
3	Robert Fischer (1911–1983)	1. April 1968	30. September 1977
4	Gerd Pfeiffer (1919–2007)	1 October 1977	31 December 1987
5	Walter Odersky (b. 1931)	1 January 1988	31 July 1996
6	Karlmann Geiß (b. 1935)	1 August 1996	31 May 2000
7	Günter Hirsch (b. 1943)	15 July 2000	31 January 2008
8	Klaus Tolksdorf (b. 1948)	1 February 2008

Vice Presidents

• Horst Hagen
• Fritz Hauß
• Burkhard Jähnke
• Gerda Müller
• Joachim Wenzel

Presiding Judges

Judges

Lawyers

In all cases, on which the civil panels has to decide, there is a enforcement to have a lawyer, who needs to be approved. The only lawyers that can be approved are those who are at least 35 years old, have been a (active) lawyer for at least five years and got nominated by the electoral committee. Requests for approval are decided by the Federal Ministry of Justice (Germany). In 2007 there were 44 approved lawyers at the court. ^[12]

Publication of decrees

Since 2000 decrees of the Federal Court of Justice are publicized on the official website of the court. ^[13]

External links

• official website of the Federal Court of Justice of Germany

References

• “Brockhaus in drei Bänden” (German), page 839, ISBN-13: 978-3-7-653-1514-5
• “Meyers Großes Taschenlexikon in 24 Bänden” (German), page 1038, ISBN-13: 978-3-411-10063-7

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1. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/docs/broschuerebgh_2007.pdf - page 4 (German)
2. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/docs/broschuerebgh_2007.pdf - page 5 (German)
3. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/docs/broschuerebgh_2007.pdf - page 6 (German)
4. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/bgh/aufgabe/stellung.php (German)
5. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/bgh/aufgabe/verteilung.php (German)
6. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/bgh/aufgabe.php (German)
7. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/bgh/aufgabe/verfahren.php - point 1. (German)
8. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/bgh/aufgabe/verfahren.php - point 2. (German)
9. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/bgh/aufgabe/verfahren.php - point 3. (German)
10. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/richter/richter2.php (German)
11. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/bgh/praesidenten.php (German)
12. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/bgh/rechtsanwaelte.php (German)
13. ^ http://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/entscheidungen/entscheidungen.php (German)

Supreme Courts of Germany

Bundesverfassungsgericht | Gemeinsamer Senat der Obersten Gerichtshöfe

Bundesverwaltungsgericht | Bundesgerichtshof | Bundesfinanzhof | Bundesarbeitsgericht | Bundessozialgericht

Coordinates: 49°00′22″N 8°23′48″E / 49.00611, 8.39667

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