Contact lock

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In German law, a contact block is the interruption of any connection between a criminal or prisoner on remand with other prisoners and the outside world.

content

Blocking contacts includes, in particular, the interruption of written or verbal communication with the defense lawyer , which does not happen in simple solitary confinement. In Germany, according to the Contact Blocking Act of 1977, contact blocking can be imposed on prisoners who have been convicted of terrorist offenses under Section 129a of the Criminal Code ( membership in a terrorist organization ), or who have been issued an arrest warrant on suspicion of this. The blocking of contact can only be ordered if there is a suspicion of danger to life, limb or freedom of a person from a terrorist group.

The blocking of contacts can be ordered by a state government or an authority commissioned by it; the Federal Minister of Justice has authority across all states . A contact block must be confirmed by the competent Higher Regional Court or the Federal Court of Justice within two weeks , otherwise it will lose its effect.

history

The contact blocking law was passed in the German autumn on the occasion of the kidnapping of the employer president Hanns Martin Schleyer . Already since September 6, 1977, shortly after the kidnapping began, contact was blocked for imprisoned terrorists of the Red Army Faction with reference to the justifying state of emergency under Section 34 of the Criminal Code . Even if the Federal Court of Justice had rejected a complaint directed against this by prisoners concerned on September 23, the practice of blocking contact, in particular with regard to blocked contact with criminal defense lawyers, should be put on a legal basis with the passage of a corresponding law. The Contact Blocking Act, which was inserted into the Introductory Act to the Courts Constitution Act as Sections 31 to 38 , was passed by the Bundestag on September 29, 1977, one day after the Legal Committee began deliberations on the formulation of such a law. There were 17 abstentions, 371 votes in favor and 4 against (from SPD MPs Manfred Coppik , Karl-Heinz Hansen , Dieter Lattmann and Klaus Thüsing ). After the Federal Council had given its approval the next day, the law was executed by the Federal President on October 1, announced in the Federal Law Gazette and came into force on October 2. Just minutes after it came into force, Federal Justice Minister Hans-Jochen Vogel set the ban on 72 inmates. The 3rd Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice confirmed the orders on October 13, 1977. With four prisoners, including Werner Schlegel and Peter Paul Zahl , the contact block was declared by the BGH as "unlawfully applied". A constitutional complaint against the Contact Blocking Act was later unanimously rejected by the Federal Constitutional Court. The suicide of Andreas Baader , Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe in the correctional facility in Stammheim on October 18 coincided with the ban on contact. After the kidnapped Schleyer was murdered, the ban on contact was lifted three days later on October 21.

With the elimination of the federal legislative competence for the penal system due to the 2006 federalism reform (cf. Art. 74, Paragraph 1, No. 1 of the Basic Law), changes to the law with regard to the blocking of contacts should in future be exclusively a matter for the Land legislation ( Art. 125a, Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law).

literature

  • Stephan Hocks: The hole has to be filled. 30 years of contact blocking law . In: myops, ISSN  1865-2301 , issue 1/2007, pp. 52-55.
  • Contact blocking: Information about a law to combat terrorism , Ed .: The Federal Minister of Justice, Department for Press and Public Relations, 2nd edition, as of: Nov. 1978, Bonn 1978.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BGBl. 1977 I p. 1877
  2. ↑ Stefan Aust : The Baader-Meinhof-Complex , in the 29th chapter Volker Speitel is arrested (Sunday, October 2, 1977) of the 5th chapter forty-four days in autumn
  3. ^ Decision of August 1, 1978