District Court (GDR)

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District Court of Ilmenau (1988)

The district court corresponded to the district court of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1952 to 1990 in the GDR (and for a transitional period also in the new federal states) .

Basically, for each district and for each urban district or - if available - for each urban district (e.g. in East Berlin (11), Magdeburg (4), Erfurt (3), Leipzig (7), Dresden (5), Karl- Marx-Stadt (3)) a district court. The district courts in the city districts of East Berlin carried the designation "city district court" . In some cases, a joint district court was formed for several districts (in each case the city and district of Wismar, Stralsund, Greifswald, Neubrandenburg, Brandenburg, Eisenhüttenstadt, Weimar, Suhl, Plauen, Görlitz ) or for several districts of a city district (Halle). The total number of district courts in the mid-1980s was 236.

Each district court was headed by a director. The judiciary was exercised through chambers , which were occupied in the negotiations with a full-time judge and two lay judges . In addition, free legal information offices existed at the district courts.

The jurisdiction of the district courts extended to the areas of civil , family , labor and criminal law , only in the final phase of the GDR also to administrative law (according to the enumeration principle). They were the first instance; in addition, they decided on appeals against decisions of the social courts ( conflict and arbitration commissions ). Appeals (by the parties) and protests (by the public prosecutor) were appeals to the district court against judgments of the district court, and complaints against decisions; Already final decisions could be overturned in the cassation procedure by the district court or the supreme court.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Courts Constitution Act 1952 (in particular Sections 38-45)
  2. ↑ Courts Constitution Act 1959 (Sections 50–56)
  3. ↑ Courts Constitution Act 1963 (§§ 36–43)
  4. ↑ Courts Constitution Act 1974 (§§ 22–28)

literature

  • Directory of courts, public prosecutors and state notaries' offices at state, district and district level in the GDR and Berlin (East) . All-German Institute, Bonn 1987.
  • Inga Markovits : Justice in Lüritz: an East German legal history . Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-55054-1 . - Legal history “from below” based on the files of a district court in the north of the GDR.