Legal monopoly

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Germany, a legal monopoly (also known as legal privilege) is a relatively strong representation of people qualified to hold judicial office (fully qualified lawyers ) in government management positions in the career of the higher non-technical administrative service .

It is not a real monopoly . The historically grown practice dates back to the times when both academic training and state activities were even less differentiated.

According to the Constance Elite Study of 2005, 60.8 percent of all executives in the highest German federal authorities and subordinate areas are lawyers, although their share had only decreased by 1.8 percentage points compared to 1987. By far the next largest group are economists (13.3 percent compared to 17.7 percent in 1987) and natural scientists (9.2 percent). The federal ministers, the parliamentary state secretaries and all members of the German Bundestag were included in the study from the political sphere. The (civil servant) state secretaries, department heads and sub-department heads of the federal ministries were counted among the administrative elite.

The Cabinet Merkel II was half lawyers, currently (2019), only five of 16 members of the federal government lawyers.

The so-called legal monopoly has its counterpart in the management of large companies, for which lawyers have also been recruited and are becoming increasingly popular.

The sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf took the view that the more important the management positions, the greater the likelihood that they would be filled by lawyers. It is precisely through a lack of professional definition that one can become an “expert in general, a man at the top”. An elite is trained in the law faculties, as in the public schools and the Grande Écoles .

The need to be able to deal with laws is also cited as an argument . For example, the law on the State of Brandenburg's Court of Audit stipulates that a third of its members, including the President or Vice-President, must be qualified to hold judicial office. Authorities can only be represented in courts where a lawyer is required by a person who is qualified to hold the office of judge. However, extensive legal knowledge is not required in all offices of the higher service. That is why the technical areas are shaped by engineers , physicists and chemists . In universities and schools too, lawyers are only employed for specific legal tasks.

literature

  • Walter Leisner: The legal monopoly in public administration . In: Jurist and State Consciousness. Contributions to the conference "Jurist and State Consciousness" of the Academy for Politics and Current Affairs of the Hanns Seidel Foundation . (Heidelberg Forum; 46), v. Decker and Müller, Heidelberg 1987, pp. 53-67.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. z. B. Section 17 (5) of the Federal Civil Servants Act, Section 21 of the Federal Career Ordinance
  2. ^ Günter Püttner: Administrative apprenticeship . 4th edition, Munich 2007, § 12, I, 7.
  3. ↑ Katja Schwanke and Falk Ebinger: Politicization and Understanding of the Role of the German Administrative Elite 1970 to 2005 . In: Bogumil, Jann, Nullmeyer (ed.): Politics and administration . Special issue 37 of the Political Quarterly Bulletin . Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, p. 233.
  4. ↑ a. a. Cit., P. 231.
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Kaden: Juristen-Republik Deutschland in: Manager-magazin.de of October 28, 2009 (queried on October 30, 2009)
  6. ^ Martin Greiffenhagen , Sylvia Greiffenhagen: Concise dictionary on the political culture of the Federal Republic of Germany . VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2002 p. 307.
  7. ^ Ralf Dahrendorf: Society and Democracy in Germany . 1965, p. 251 f.