Juvenile Court Act (Germany)

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Basic data
Title: Juvenile Justice Act
Abbreviation: JGG
Type: Federal law
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany   
Legal matter: Administration of justice , juvenile criminal law
References : 451-1
Original version from: February 16, 1923
( RGBl. I p. 135)
Entry into force on: March 13, 1923
New announcement from: December 11, 1974
( BGBl. I p. 3427 )
Last revision from: 4th August 1953
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 751 )
Entry into force of the
new version on: 		October 1, 1953
Last change by: Art. 1 G of 9 December 2019
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 2146 )
Effective date of the
last change: 		predominantly December 17, 2019
(Art. 8 G of December 9, 2019)
GESTA : C094
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The Youth Courts Act (JGG) regulates the majority of the formal youth criminal law in the Federal Republic of Germany . His core idea is "education before punishment". It is lex specialis to substantive and formal criminal law - where no special rules of the JGG apply, the criminal code or the code of criminal procedure apply.

history

Empire

According to the Reich Criminal Code of 1871 (RStGB), criminal responsibility occurred at the age of 12 (§ 55 RStGB). An accused, who was criminally responsible, but had not reached the age of 18, was acc. § 56 Abs. 1 RStGB acquitted if he "did not have the insight necessary to recognize its criminal liability" when committing the act. He could, however, be referred to his family or be admitted to an educational or reformatory institution up to the age of 20 . This regulation already existed in the Criminal Code for the North German Confederation of May 31, 1870. For those under the age of criminal responsibility and capable of insight before the age of 18, the penalties applicable to adults were to be reduced (Section 57 RStGB).

According to the imperial law of February 17, 1875, the age of majority occurred at the age of 21. However, the criminal law did not contain any special provisions for 18 to 20 year olds.

Weimar Republic

The first juvenile court law drafted by Gustav Radbruch was enacted on February 16, 1923. It already carried the main features of today's youth court law and implemented ideas of the criminal lawyer Franz von Liszt . The age of criminal responsibility was increased to 14 years and special juvenile courts were created. It also defined the term young person for the first time as a person who is over 14 years old but not yet 18 years old (Section 1 JGG). A young person was not punished if "if at the time of the act he was unable, according to his intellectual and moral development, to see what was illegal in the act or to determine his will in accordance with this insight" (§ 3 JGG). In the case of discerning young people, the court had to examine whether educational measures were necessary. If they thought it was sufficient, no punishment was imposed (§§ 5, 6 JGG). The criminal court could also leave the order and selection of educational measures to the guardianship court. A punishment was to be mitigated compared to adult criminal law (§ 9 JGG), the execution of a prison sentence could be suspended in order to earn a penalty through good conduct during a trial period of two to five years (§§ 10, 12 JGG). When executing a prison sentence, young people should be kept separate from adults and their upbringing should be encouraged (Section 16 JGG).

At the same time, the first Reich Law for Youth Welfare was passed in 1922 , according to which every German child had "a right to an education for physical, mental and social fitness". Young people in need of education who had not become a criminal offense fell under the responsibility of the youth welfare authorities ( youth welfare office , state youth welfare office and Reich youth welfare office ), although implementation was initially very hesitant in the turmoil of the Weimar Republic .

National Socialism

With the first ordinance on protection against juvenile felons of October 4, 1939, young people from the age of 16 were equated with adults if, according to their “intellectual and moral development, they were to be considered equal to a person over eighteen years old” and “in the act particularly reprehensible criminal convictions or the protection of the people made such a punishment necessary ”(§ 1 Paragraph 2). A softening of the educational concept was made with the Reich Youth Court Act and the youth criminal law regulation of November 6, 1943. Under the above-mentioned conditions, adult criminal law was applied from the age of 14, just as if "the young person at the time of the act according to his moral and intellectual development cannot be equated with an adult, but the overall assessment of his personality and his act shows that he is a felon with abnormal character and the protection of the people requires this treatment "(§ 20). The age limit of criminal responsibility remained basically at 14 years, but was practically reduced to 12 years "if the protection of the people or the reprehensible criminal disposition of the perpetrator demands a criminal punishment." However, adult criminal law could not be applied to under 14 year olds. The moral judgment and the corresponding willpower are formulated positively for the first time (1923 only negative - excluding). The relativization is now based on the insight into the “wrongful act” (1923: “unlawful act”).

post war period

The Youth Court Act of the German Democratic Republic of May 23, 1952, which came into force on June 1, 1952, pursued the goal of "educating young people to be independent and responsible citizens of the democratic state who love their homeland and fight for peace" as well as the protection of the "anti-fascist-democratic order". Accordingly, the law emphasizes that particular leniency must be exercised towards young people: "In this context, educational measures are to be given priority over punishment and a punishment is only imposed if the purpose of the law cannot otherwise be achieved." The age of criminal responsibility was increased to 14 years. Since then, children under the age of 14 have not been criminally responsible in the GDR. A youth within the meaning of the law was anyone over fourteen but not yet eighteen. However, juveniles were punished for committed and attempted murder, rape, sabotage and certain political crimes as well as the repeated commission of serious crimes under adult criminal law, although the death penalty could not be imposed on juveniles (Section 24). On July 1, 1968, the Youth Courts Act was replaced by the special provisions for young people in the then newly introduced Criminal Code (GDR) (Sections 65 to 79). Until 1977 juveniles could also be sentenced to life imprisonment , after which the maximum sentence was 15 years.

On August 4, 1953, a new law on juvenile justice was passed in the Federal Republic of Germany and came into force on October 1, 1953. The age of criminal responsibility was increased to 14 years (Section 1 (3) JGG). The personal scope differentiated between adolescents and adolescents . According to this, adolescents were those who were 14 but not yet 18 at the time of the act , adolescents who were 18 but not yet 21 years old at the time of the act (Section 1 (2) JGG). A young person was only responsible under criminal law "if at the time of the act he was mature enough in terms of his moral and intellectual development to see the wrongdoing of the act and to act according to this insight" (§ 3 sentence 1 JGG). If a young person was not criminally responsible for lack of maturity, the criminal judge could order the same measures as the guardianship judge (§ 3 sentence 2 JGG). The 18- to 20-year-old adolescents, although not yet of legal age according to the law at the time, were only subject to the provisions applicable to young people in the event of a delay in maturity or if the offense was youth misconduct in terms of type, circumstances or motives (Section 105 JGG).

With effect from January 1, 1975, the age of majority in Germany was reduced from the completion of the 21st to the completion of the 18th year of life. The JGG, however, stuck to the application of juvenile criminal law to the adolescents grown up afterwards, "if the overall assessment of the perpetrator's personality, taking into account also the environmental conditions, shows that at the time of the act he was still tied to a young person in terms of his moral and intellectual development or according to the nature, the circumstances or the motives of the act it is a question of youth misconduct ”( § 1 , § 105 JGG).

Since the German reunification , the Youth Courts Act has also applied in the new federal states .

scope of application

The Juvenile Court Act is applicable to all age of criminal responsibility ( § 19 of the Criminal Code : at least 14 years old) adolescents applicable. Adolescents (18 to under 21-year-olds) are punished according to § 105 JGG according to juvenile criminal law if at the time of the act they were still equal in their moral and intellectual development or if the nature, circumstances or motives of the act were Youth abuse acts. According to the Juvenile Court Act, the application of juvenile criminal law to adolescents is not the rule, rather it is to be decided on a case-by-case basis through an assessment of the personality and the act by the court, whether in the specific case adult criminal law or the Juvenile Court Act apply.

The juvenile court assistance plays an important role in criminal proceedings against young people and adolescents.It accompanies the proceedings from beginning to end, suggests in the main hearing whether juvenile criminal law or general criminal law should be applied to adolescents, as well as suggestions on what to do next takes effective action.

Core idea

The regulations of the JGG rely on education over the imposition of punishment. Nevertheless, most of the measures that can be imposed on the basis of the JGG have the character of a sanction. In contrast to general criminal law, a juvenile court has a broader catalog of sanctions available in order to find an optimal response to juvenile delinquency. Subsequent preventive detention has been possible for young people since 2008, but since 2011 only if the court reserved this option in the judgment ( Section 7 , Section 81a and Section 106 JGG).

Other special features compared to the general criminal procedure are the preliminary probation ( § 61 JGG) and the electoral remedy ( § 55 para. 2 JGG).

In addition to the settings of the Criminal Procedure Code is available in § 45 , § 47 JGG further possibilities of the proceedings terminated without trial if the educational action as part of a process setting is ensured.

content

The substantive area of ​​regulation is formal criminal law. There are no criminal offenses in the JGG, they are regulated by the StGB and the ancillary criminal law. Substantive legal regulations are limited to the legal consequences.

The Youth Courts Act is structured as follows:

  1. Scope: Contains the definitions of the term youth and adolescents as well as the subsidiarity principle of other law.
  2. Teenagers
    1. Misconduct of adolescents and their consequences: In this section, the special legal consequences of juvenile criminal law are described in terms of material law : educational measures , disciplinary substances and the juvenile punishment .
    2. Juvenile court constitution and juvenile criminal proceedings: These provisions replace the code of criminal procedure. The youth court constitution is to be distinguished from the usual court constitution in that one speaks of youth public prosecutor (instead of public prosecutor ), youth court, youth judge, youth lay judge and youth chamber. The assignment to the local or regional court is determined by the general rules.
    3. Enforcement and enforcement: The legal consequences of crimes committed by young people are enforced in their own institutions (juvenile prison, juvenile detention). The legal bases are currently being created at the state level after they have received the legislative competence for the penal system.
    4. Further sections deal with the elimination of the criminal flaw and the juveniles before courts in general criminal matters.
  3. Adolescents: This section declares the preceding provisions to be applicable, provided that the requirements of Section 105 JGG are met.
  4. Special regulations for soldiers in the Bundeswehr: Special regulations have been issued for young people and adolescents in the Bundeswehr, who are usually tried and sentenced under the Military Criminal Act.
  5. Final and transitional provisions: These provisions enable the appointment of a probation officer and the authorization provision for ordinances on enforcement.

literature

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reich Criminal Code (RStGB)
  2. ↑ RGBl. I p. 135
  3. ↑ Thomas Morawetz: February 16, 1923: Own youth criminal law in Germany Bayerischer Rundfunk , February 16, 2012
  4. ↑ RGBl. I pp. 635, 637.
  5. ↑ Youth Court Act of the GDR of May 23, 1952: The JGG of the GDR ( Memento of the original of May 6, 2016 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. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.prof-wolf.de
  6. ↑ BGBl. I p. 751
  7. ↑ Art. 1 of the law on the new regulation of the age of majority, Federal Law Gazette I p. 1713
  8. ^ BGH judgment of December 6, 1988, Az. 1 StR 620/88, full text = BGHSt 36, 37 - Application of youth criminal law to adolescents.
  9. ^ Tillmann Bartsch: The legal remedies in juvenile criminal proceedings . Validity of general regulations, special features, current issues ZJJ 2016, pp. 112–119.