Political Justice

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Political justice is a political buzzword . With it a jurisprudence is described predominantly pejoratively , which is not only obliged to the law , but also to political goals .

In democracies based on the rule of law , a political judiciary is in conflict with the principles of the separation of powers and judicial independence and is punishable as a perversion of the law. In dictatorships , the judiciary is often officially obliged to enforce the line of government.

A political judiciary cannot simply be equated with the prosecution of political crimes .

Political justice and basic democratic rights

Political justice invalidates the judiciary's independence from the respective rulers and thus violates basic democratic rights . This independence is the separation of powers guaranteed in Germany by Article 20, Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law . It represents an abuse of executive power in the sense of political justice if the judiciary does not take into account the equality of political groups before the law, but primarily serves to eliminate the respective political opponent and thus extends the scope of the ruling political executive and not the Control of these measures is used.

Consolidation of socio-economic domination interests: class justice

According to Erich Fromm, political justice is an inappropriate attempt to consolidate socio-economic interests in rule, which sees the basic prerequisites for rule in the inferiority of what is ruled. Such socio-economic interests had already been explored by William Godwin in his 1793 work Inquiry Concerning Political Justice, both from a critical (negative) point of view and in a positive way. The positive view of the basis of rule consists in broad political approval, the negative in the falsification of the ability to judge by claiming ownership of material goods.

A related political catchphrase is class justice . The term class justice is used by Marxists , among others, to characterize justice as an instrument of the ruling class ( capitalists ) in the class struggle to maintain class society . It thus represents a special case of political justice. Marxists understand justice as an uncritical instrument for cementing social relations. Karl Marx's assessment that legal relationships and forms of government are rooted in material living conditions describes these facts.

Positive cast: Critical Justice

In real socialism , the term class justice was used positively as a description of one's own justice. Kurt Tucholsky ruled in 1930: “I have nothing against class justice; I just don't like the class that makes it. ”Stephen Rehmke demands to be committed to this dictum of Tucholsky in the sense of a critical judiciary, since judiciary“ cannot be apolitical ”.

The 1968 movement opposed the ideal of the judge, who was only bound by the law, with the image of a critical lawyer who should have political awareness and use his judicial independence to bring about politically desired changes. The judge should, as it were, contribute to a better society as a "social engineer".

Coming to terms with the Nazi past

In the course of coming to terms with the Nazi past, the role of the judiciary in the time of National Socialism was also discussed, when the judiciary, relying on the formal law, had become an accomplice of the unjust state (see Terrible Jurists , Filbinger Affair ).

Examples

literature

  • William Godwin : Property First Edition 1793 McMaster University
  • Otto Kirchheimer: Political Justice. Use of legal process options for political purposes. European Publishing House, Frankfurt a. M., 1981, ISBN 3-434-00470-X .
  • Otto Gritschneder: Terrible lawyers. Criminal death sentences by German courts-martial. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-42072-9 .
  • Ingo Müller: Terrible lawyers. The unresolved past of our judiciary. Kindler Verlag, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-463-40038-3 .
  • Kurt Kreiler (Ed.): Traditions of German Justice. Political trials 1914-1932. A reader on the history of the Weimar Republic. Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-8031-1080-7 .
  • Heinrich Hannover , Elisabeth Hannover-Drück : Political Justice 1918–1933. With an introduction by Karl Dietrich Bracher. Fischer library, Frankfurt am Main / Hamburg 1966.
  • Ilse Staff: Justice in the Third Reich. A documentation. Fischer library, Frankfurt am Main / Hamburg 1964.
  • Manfred Messerschmidt, Fritz Wüllner: The Wehrmacht Justice in the Service of National Socialism. Destroying a legend. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1987, ISBN 3-7890-1466-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Otto Kirchheimer : Political Justice. Use of legal process options for political purposes . (1961 Political Justice) German Luchterhand, Neuwied 1965, p. 606.
  2. ↑ Erich Fromm : The pathology of normality. To the science of man. (1974, 2005). 3. Edition. Ullstein, 2009, ISBN 978-3-548-36778-1 ; P. 145 ff.
  3. ^ A b William Godwin : Inquiry Concerning Political Justice Vol. I – VIII (1793). 1890 Reprint of Volume VIII, Property (original version 1793). Positive view : Excerpt from Volume III Principles of Government : “One of the most popular theories, relative to the foundation of political authority, we have seen to be that of an original contract, affirming that the criterion of political justice is to be found in the conventions and rules which have been adjusted by the community at large. "- Negative view : Excerpt from Vol. VIII Of Property:" The subject of property is the key-stone that completes the fabric of political justice . According to our ideas respecting it are crude or correct, they will enlighten us as to the consequences of a simple form of society without government , and remove the prejudices that attach us to complexity. There is nothing that more powerfully tends to distort our judgment and opinions than erroneous notions concerning the goods of fortune. "
  4. ↑ Marx / Engels Werke (MEW), On the Critique of Political Economy , Foreword, Vol. XIII, p. 8 f.
  5. ^ Kurt Tucholsky : Political Justice . Hamburg 1970, p. 91.
  6. ↑ Stephen Rehmke: Political Justice . In: Why study law? Forum Recht , special edition 2002/2003, pp. 26–27.
  7. ↑ Johann Braun: Introduction to Law . 3. Edition. 2007, ISBN 978-3-16-149401-7 , p. 108, books.google.de