Conflict Commission

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ilse Wedel (r.), Member of the works union management and the conflict committee in VEB Kombinat Narva Berlin Glühlampenwerk and lay judge of the Senate for Labor Law at the Supreme Court of the GDR , 1976

In the system of the GDR justice system, conflict commissions ( KK for short ) counted alongside the arbitration commissions and, in contrast to state jurisdiction, to the so-called social courts of the "socialist administration of justice".

According to the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev, the conflict commission served to transfer state functions "to the people" in order to "solve social contradictions more effectively than the previous organs with their methods". The legal basis was initially the Conflict Commissions Ordinance of 1953, then the law on social courts of June 11, 1968 and March 25, 1982.

The constitution of the German Democratic Republic of 1968 then regulated in Article 92:

"In the German Democratic Republic, jurisdiction is exercised by the Supreme Court, the district courts, the district courts and the social courts within the framework of the tasks assigned to them by law."

- Article 92, VerfDDR68 (emphasis not on original)

The East German conflict commissions were similar in their function to the West German industrial justice system .

Responsibility and composition

According to Section 4 (1) of the Law on Social Courts , with effect from July 1, 1968, "[...] the conflict commissions [...] in state- owned companies and companies equivalent to them, in companies with state participation and in private companies, in institutions of health care, culture and popular education, in state organs and institutions as well as in social organizations. " Several conflict commissions have been set up in larger companies. There should be a conflict committee for every 500 employees. In 1990 there were 26,744 conflict commissions with almost 300,000 members.

The members of the conflict commissions were not trained lawyers , but always lay judges , who, however, had to attend regular training courses and instructions on the "correct" interpretation and application of "socialist law". The members of the conflict commissions were chosen from among the working people of the respective company. Half of the members were named by the management, the other half by the FDGB operational organization . A conflict commission consisted of 8 to 15 members, but there were also conflict commissions with only 6 or up to 20 members. The members had a term of office of two years until 1968 and four years thereafter.

At the request of a party, the conflict commission was competent in labor law matters and subordinate civil law disputes (with a value in dispute of up to around 1000 GDR marks ), and after handover by the police or the public prosecutor, also in the case of petty crime (in GDR parlance: " offenses " and "misconduct ") Instead of the state judiciary and in cleared-up administrative offenses . The arbitration committees , however, were responsible for dealing with “work-shy behavior” (Section 8 (2) of the Law on Social Courts 1968).

decisions

The procedure before the conflict commission was compulsory before the state jurisdiction in labor matters. The decision of the commission became legally binding, similar to a court judgment. However, it was possible to appeal against these decisions within a legally stipulated period of time at the locally competent district court . Here the matter was then checked by a professional judge (possibly with two lay judges ) and renegotiated and either repealed or confirmed. In this respect, the conflict commissions had the function of a labor court of first instance.

abolition

After the fall of the Berlin Wall , the Conflict Commission was also involved in the process of re-establishing a constitutional state . The dominant influence of the SED, renamed PDS , on the conflict commissions ended. The first freely elected People's Chamber transformed them into arbitration boards with the law on arbitration boards for labor law . You lost the opportunity to impose penalties. On December 31, 1992 these arbitration boards for labor law were also abolished.

Written documents from conflict commissions, for example, were archived in district archives.

Procedural statistics

1986 1987 1988 Examples
Labor law ; from that: 53,300 75.8% 57,107 76.7% 57,240 78.7%
- material responsibility 35,174 50.0% 37,410 50.2% 37,386 51.4% AuA 1988 pp. 140 , 181
- Appeals against disciplinary measures 4,284 6.1% 4,640 6.2% 4,867 6.7%
- Wage / salary / compensation payments 3,733 5.3% 3,945 5.3% 3,926 5.4% AuA 1988 p. 254
- educational procedures 2,041 2.9% 2,085 2.8% 1,833 2.5% AuA 1988 p. 88
- other disputes 8,068 11.5% 9,027 12.1% 9,228 12.7% AuA 1988 pp. 162 , 185
Offense 12,511 17.8% 12,729 17.1% 11,240 15.5% AuA 1988 p. 40
Misconduct 3,386 4.8% 3,466 4.7% 3,279 4.5%
Administrative offenses 645 0.9% 746 1.0% 589 0.8%
School violations 119 0.2% 108 0.1% 77 0.1%
civil right 342 0.5% 334 0.4% 311 0.4%
total 70,303 74,490 72,736

literature

  • Werner Reiland: The social courts of the GDR. Dissertation . Erdmann, Tübingen / Basel 1971, ISBN 3-7711-0949-3 .
  • Hans-Andreas Schönfeldt: From Arbitrator to Arbitration Commission: Enforcement of Norms by Territorial Social Courts in the GDR. (= Studies on European Legal History. Volume 145). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-465-03176-8 .

Web links

Wikisource: Conflict Commission Regulations (GDR) 1968  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Abbreviations from the holdings of the parties and mass organizations of the GDR SED and FDGB archives in the Federal Archives , accessed on February 18, 2016
  2. ↑ Conflict Commissions: Justice in the Company . Der Spiegel , 22/1960 from May 25, 1960
  3. ↑ Journal of Laws No. 63 p. 695
  4. ^ Text of the GDR Constitution 1968
  5. ^ Law on the social courts of the German Democratic Republic of June 11, 1968
  6. ^ Wolfgang Behlert: Organization and social status of judges and lawyers in the GDR . Kritische Justiz 1991, pp. 184-197
  7. ↑ Marlies Menge: GDR Conflict Commissions: If someone steals toothpaste - comrades judge comrades . Die Zeit , February 16, 1973
  8. ^ Instruction 1/85 of the Public Prosecutor General of the German Democratic Republic: The management of the preliminary proceedings by the public prosecutor of June 1, 1985, point 4.5., P. 19
  9. ^ Wolfgang Behlert: Organization and social status of judges and lawyers in the GDR . Kritische Justiz 1991, pp. 184-197
  10. ↑ Klaus Pokatzky: The judgment machine. The GDR judiciary, yesterday still servant of the SED, rushes towards the rule of law. . Die Zeit , July 13, 1990
  11. ↑ Law on the establishment and procedure of arbitration boards for labor law of June 29, 1990, Journal of Laws of I No. 38 p. 505
  12. ↑ Act to repeal the law on the establishment and procedure of arbitration boards for labor law and to amend the Labor Promotion Act (ARSchiedsGAufhG) of December 20, 1991 ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 2321 )
  13. ^ Archive portal Thuringia held by the Jena District Council
  14. ^ AuA 1989 p. 112