Introductory Act to the Law on Administrative Offenses

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Basic data
Title: Introductory Act to the Law on Administrative Offenses
Abbreviation: EGOWiG
Type: Federal law
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany
Legal matter: Ancillary criminal law , administrative offense law
References : 454-2
Issued on: May 24, 1968
( BGBl. I p. 503 )
Entry into force on: 1st October 1968
Last change by: Art. 25 G of December 13, 2001 ( BGBl. I p. 3574 )
Effective date of the
last change: 		January 1, 2002
Expiry: November 30, 2007 (Art. 57 G of November 23, 2007, Federal Law Gazette I p. 2614 )
Weblink: Text of the EGOWiG in the version valid until November 30, 2007
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The Introductory Act to the Law on Administrative Offenses (EGOWiG) of May 24, 1968 was a federal law comprising 156 articles to standardize the laws of ancillary criminal law that had been in effect until then . It came into force at the same time as the Law on Administrative Offenses (OWiG) on October 1, 1968, which eliminated many offenses from criminal injustice and downgraded them to administrative offenses .

General meaning

In connection with the major criminal law reform in the 1960s, the EGOWiG contained partly provisions to amend the Criminal Code , partly provisions on the simultaneously revised law on administrative offenses, and concerned offenses that the legislature no longer considered worthy of criminal offense.

In particular, the practically particularly significant offenses of road traffic law were converted into fines. The remaining offenses were then decriminalized accordingly on January 1, 1975 in the Introductory Act to the new Criminal Code .

The law was divided into four sections:

  1. Changes to the Criminal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Road Traffic Act
  2. Follow-up regulations resulting from the new regulation of the Act on Administrative Offenses and from the amendments to the Criminal Code for federal law (amendment of more than 160 individual acts)
  3. general regulations for adapting state law
  4. Transitional and final provisions.

The EGOWiG was repealed around 37 years after it came into force, as there was no longer any practical need for the regulations it contained.

Particular importance of Art. 1 No. 6 EGOWiG

The law had been drafted by the ministerial official Eduard Dreher , a former NSDAP member and from 1938 public prosecutor at the Innsbruck Special Court , and came into force while the social democrat Gustav Heinemann was the incumbent Federal Minister of Justice.

Contrary to the legal purpose of the EGOWiG, namely to decriminalize only petty offenses , Article 1 No. 6 EGOWiG led by an amendment to § 50 StGB - in its legal and political significance to this day controversial - that the so-called " final solution to the Jewish question " is also considered to be the criminal law most serious offense could no longer be punished. According to the case law of the 5th Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice of May 20, 1969, when Section 50 (2) of the Criminal Code ( new version) was applied, a participation in an act in which the accused could not be proven to have acted for low motives such as racial hatred The statute of limitations since 1960 (so-called statute of limitations scandal ). It was "in the preparatory work on the EGOWiG obviously overlooked the consequences of the redesign of § 50 for the statute of limitations, in particular for the problem of the statute of limitations for participation in murder".

Thus the beginning of the 1960s led was limitation debate undermined, as a result of the entry of the limitation period for crimes during the NS dictatorship had not been punished for political reasons, should be explicitly prevented.

Since the entry into force of § 78 Abs. 4 StGB in the version of the 2nd Criminal Law Amendment Act (2nd StrRG) on October 1, 1973, the reduction of the maximum penalty for aiding and abetting according to Section 27 (2) i. V. m. Section 49 (1) of the Criminal Code without affecting the duration of the limitation period. This enabled, for example, the conviction of John Demjanjuk in 2011 for aiding and abetting murder in the Sobibor extermination camp .

literature

  • Michael Greve: Amnesty of Nazi aides - a glitch? The amendment to Section 50 (2) of the Criminal Code and its effects on Nazi criminal prosecution . In: Critical Justice . No. 3 , 2000, pp. 412–424 ( nomos.de [PDF; 2.8 MB ; accessed on January 27, 2019]).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BGBl. I p. 481 .
  2. ^ Draft of an introductory law to the law on administrative offenses (EGOWiG) BT-Drs. V / 1319 of January 20, 1967, p. 51.
  3. ^ Draft of a second law on the adjustment of federal law in the area of ​​responsibility of the Federal Ministry of Justice BT-Drs. 16/5051 of April 20, 2007, p. 43 f.
  4. ↑ Michael Greve: Amnesty of Nazi aides - a glitch? The amendment to Section 50 (2) of the Criminal Code and its effects on Nazi criminal prosecution . In: Kritische Justiz 2003, pp. 412–424.
  5. ↑ workup of the conclusion of an amnesty for Nazi crimes by prescription in 1968 by the Introductory Act to the Administrative Offenses Act DIP , ID: 17-40254.
  6. ↑ Adam Soboczynski, Jens Jessen: Nazi era: The lathe law . In: Die Zeit , September 1, 2011.
  7. ↑ See BGH, judgment of May 20, 1969 - 5 StR 658/68 .
  8. ^ Norbert Seitz: Limitation of Nazi Murders A Compromise as a Milestone Deutschlandfunk , March 10, 2015.
  9. ↑ Heribert Prantl : Cold Amnesty Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 6, 2018.
  10. ↑ Second law on the reform of criminal law (2nd StrRG) of July 4, 1969, Federal Law Gazette I p. 717 .
  11. ↑ Judgment of the LG Munich II of May 12, 2011 - 1 Ks 115 Js 12496/08 , p. 374 f.