Babelsberg Conference
The Babelsberg Conference of April 2 and 3, 1958, was a jurisprudential conference that took place at the German Academy for Political Science and Law . At the conference, essential foundations were laid for the legal theory and, above all, legal practice prevailing in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) .
prehistory
Within the jurisprudence of the GDR, there were considerable differences of opinion on fundamental legal principles. Karl Polak, for example, saw the rule of law as an empty political battle concept of the bourgeois classes and the necessity of the unified state with the abolition of the separation of powers as an experience from the failure of the Weimar Republic . Furthermore, in the declaration of human rights, it is not the human rights content but the revolutionary act that should be important. In contrast, the department head in the Ministry of Justice Thuringia, Karl Schultes, represented a social constitutional state based on real democracy , which in terms of content is comparable to similar views of Hermann Heller . The legal philosopher Arthur Baumgarten took the view that the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches - especially with regard to the control of the administration by the administrative judiciary - was compatible with the constitution of the German Democratic Republic of 1949.
Effects
Administrative law
On the basis of an order from the Soviet military administration of July 8, 1947 - with the exception of Berlin and Saxony-Anhalt - an administrative jurisdiction was re-established in the area of the Soviet occupation zone . In Article 138, Paragraph 1 of the 1949 Constitution of the GDR, the power of the administrative courts was limited to the determination of the unlawfulness of the administrative act. The control of norms, however, was the responsibility of the People's Chamber . With the administrative reform of 1952 , not only were the previous states replaced by the districts , but the administrative courts were also completely abolished.
With regard to administrative law, Walter Ulbricht had made it clear at the conference in his presentation by Karl Polak, “The theory of the state of Marxism-Leninism and its application in Germany”, that the separation between the individual and society only corresponds to bourgeois legal conceptions. With his speech he made it clear that there could no longer be administrative jurisprudence based on subjective rights . Instead of an administrative judicial review, the instrument of submission was created, with which GDR citizens could appeal against administrative action. Decisions about submissions were, however, not binding for the administration, regardless of whether they were affected by subjective rights or deadlines. It was not until 1988 that the law on the jurisdiction and procedure of courts for reviewing administrative decisions allowed a certain amount of administrative legal protection. The judicial review, however, was initially limited to the facts listed by law and also excluded the review of discretionary decisions and decisions based on indefinite legal terms. In the case of lawsuits relating to exit permits, for example, this resulted in the courts dismissing these lawsuits without a hearing . In fact, after the law came into force, there were only about 750 lawsuits during the period of the GDR, mainly in matters of departure.
Web links
- Hermann Klenner: Forward, but not forgotten: The Babelsberg Conference of 1958 , UTOPIE Kreativ, issue 174 (April 2005), pp. 291–305 (PDF file; 138 kB)
literature
- Stefan Güpping: The importance of the "Babelsberg Conference" of 1958 for the constitutional and scientific history of the GDR , Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-87061-676-8
- Jörn Eckert (Ed.): The Babelsberg Conference from 2./3. April 1985. Colloquium of Legal History 13. – 16. February 1992, Christian Albrechts University in Kiel. Nomos publishing company, Baden-Baden.
- The Babelsberg Conference of April 2 and 3, 1958. In: Ulrich Bernhardt: The German Academy for Political Science and Law "Walter Ulbricht" 1948 - 1971. Legal History Series, Volume 160, Peter Lang, European Publishing House of Science, p. 118 -247
Individual evidence
- ↑ On these disputes, cf. Volkmar Schöneburg: Legality and Partiality: Ruling Legal Conception and Securing of Rule in the GDR (PDF; 60 kB)
- ^ Rainer Schröder: History of GDR law: criminal and administrative law , forum historiae iuris RdNr. 28 ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Rainer Schröder: History of GDR law: criminal and administrative law , forum historiae iuris RdNr. 30-37. ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Inga Markovits : The settlement - a diary on the end of the GDR justice system. CH Beck, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-406-37316-X . Pp. 97-101.
