District Court Dornbirn
The District Court of Dornbirn (BG Dornbirn) is the competent court of first instance for the judicial district of Dornbirn (congruent with the political district of Dornbirn ) in contentious and non- contentious civil proceedings and in criminal matters.
The Dornbirn District Court is subordinate to the Feldkirch Regional Court . All courts in Vorarlberg are in turn subordinate to the Innsbruck Higher Regional Court.
History of the court in Dornbirn
middle Ages
The balance of power in Dornbirn changed from around 1079 in favor of the Counts of Bregenz. From then on, these exercised not only high jurisdiction , but also the lower jurisdiction previously exercised by the St. Gallen Monastery (see: History of Dornbirn - Rule of the Counts of Bregenz ).
Subsequently, the dominion and the court of Dornbirn (including jurisdiction) came to the Montforters and then in the 14th century to the Habsburgs (see: History of Dornbirn - Dornbirn becomes part of the Habsburg Empire ).
Modern times
In the middle of the 16th century, there was also increased judicial persecution of witches in Dornbirn, as in all of Vorarlberg . The reason for the wave of witch trials in Dornbirn at the turn of the century was possibly the negotiation against a certain Margareth von Alberschwendi ( Alberschwende ), according to Dornbpeurn . The Vogt von Feldkirch had Margareth von Alberschwendi tortured unsuccessfully for three days. The government in Innsbruck was subsequently asked for instructions. From Innsbruck came the strict instruction to refrain from such careless and unfounded accusations in the future. The Feldkirch officials were then withdrawn from independent jurisdiction. In the summer of 1563, Peter Diem from Dornbirn accused a woman of allegedly responsible for his dwindling livestock. The Innsbruck government forbade the continuation of the lawsuit, as such allegations were based on superstition and should be ignored. Nevertheless the madness continued. In 1585 Ursula Wessin was reported to the Feldkirch authorities. Ursula Wessin admitted various sorcery under torture . She was sentenced to death at the stake . Between 1597 and 1605 Dornbirn was the center of the Vorarlberg witch hunts.
The oldest written court records from Dornbirn date back to 1671. Tribunals and clerks have been mentioned in Dornbirn since the 17th century .
Before the reform at the beginning of the 19th century, the judicial district of Dornbirn was originally delimited by the judicial districts of the lords / courts of Hohenems , Hofsteig , Alberschwende and the rear Bregenzerwald . Lustenau and Ebnit were still part of the Hohenems judicial district at that time. 1806 Vorarlberg was ceded to the Kingdom of Bavaria by the Peace of Pressburg . The Bavarian government repealed the old court system. Instead of the previous 24 courts, six regional courts were set up, in addition to Dornbirn in Bregenz, Feldkirch, Bludenz, Bezau and Schruns (these are still the locations of the district courts in Vorarlberg today). In 1814 Vorarlberg came back to Austria (see also: List of judicial districts in Vorarlberg ).
In 1911 the Austrian Ministry of Justice built a new courthouse on the corner of Schillerstraße / Kapuzinergasse in Dornbirn. The style is typical of the Francisco-Josephine era. The building is now a listed building . The outpost of the Feldkirch prison is housed in the annex, which was built later .
Forgery affair
As early as 2002, in a probate proceeding according to Irene H., the responsible judge expressed concerns about the authenticity of a transfer agreement between Irene H. and Herbert R. dated August 14, 1989 in a letter addressed to the Feldkirch public prosecutor on July 31, 2002. The surveys brought no results. The public prosecutor's office in Feldkirch filed the complaint on September 19, 2002 in accordance with Section 90 (1) StPO old version on the grounds that no evidence of the crime had to be provided and that the statute of limitations had already occurred with regard to the date of certification (August 14, 1989) .
In March 2009, a judge from the BG Dornbirn reported the suspicion of forgery of wills to the Feldkirch public prosecutor. Undercover investigations follow. On November 17, 2009, two employees of the BG Dornbirn and an accountant living in Salzburg were arrested. On November 20, 2009 it became publicly known that judicial staff at the Dornbirn District Court had forged wills, possibly for decades. The further investigations revealed sufficient evidence that the Feldkirch public prosecutor's office was subsequently able to bring charges against a total of nine people on June 27, 2011.
In the main proceedings, judgments with guilty verdicts were passed by the Salzburg Regional Court in the first instance on July 31, 2012, after 21 days of negotiation, but these have not become final.
See also
Web links
- District Court Dornbirn . Information page of the Austrian Ministry of Justice.
- Court database of the Federal Ministry of Justice
- Parliamentary response from the Federal Minister of Justice Beatrix Karl to the written question (12683 / J) from the Member of Parliament Harald Walser, colleagues to the Federal Minister of Justice regarding the conduct of the Feldkirch public prosecutor in the "will affair" at the District Court of Dornbirn
- Decision of the Supreme Court in 1Ob208 / 12p of December 13, 2012 regarding official liability in the "will affair " with an overview of the forged wills and the process.
- Standard.at - Forgery of wills, seven years imprisonment for the main defendants.
literature
- Gernot Hämmerle: Wrong heirs. Forgery of wills in court , Bucher Verlag, Hohenems 2011, ISBN 978-3-99018-093-8 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Manfred Tschaikner: "So that evil may be exterminated" witch hunts in Vorarlberg in the 16th and 17th centuries. Vorarlberger Authors Society , Bregenz, 1992, ISBN 3-900754-12-8 .
- ↑ Website of the Austrian Ministry of Justice on the District Court of Dornbirn: Geschichtliches
- ↑ Dornbirn Lexikon (online at: lexikon.dornbirn.at ) and (online at: lexikon.dornbirn.at ) .
- ↑ Main town Bezau . At that time included the places from Egg / Großdorf to Schoppernau (up to the rule and court of Tannberg ).
- ↑ UT-531/02, received on August 5, 2002.
- ↑ Answer to the inquiry by the Federal Minister of Justice, Beatrix Karl , to the written inquiry (12683 / J) from the Member of Parliament Harald Walser, colleagues to the Federal Minister of Justice regarding the conduct of the Feldkirch public prosecutor in the "will affair" at the Dornbirn District Court, p. 2 f.
- ↑ The Salzburg Regional Court was elected because of the bias of all judges at the Feldkirch Regional Court, which is actually responsible for the subject matter and location.
