State Administrative Court of Saxony
The state administrative court of Saxony , based in Dresden, was the administrative court of the state of Saxony in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) and in the early years of the GDR . The literature largely assumed that this dish would only have existed on paper. Only more recent research has shown that the court had an (even if only insignificant) activity.
prehistory
In the Kingdom of Saxony , administrative jurisdiction was introduced on January 1, 1901 and thus relatively late in comparison with the other German states. At the head of the administrative courts of the kingdom was the Saxon Higher Administrative Court in Dresden. From 1909 to 1945 this was located at Antonsplatz 1 / Breite Straße 24 (the building was destroyed in February 1945). After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 was on December 1, Herbert Schelcher president of OVG. The role of administrative jurisdiction in Germany has been eroded. In 1944 administrative jurisdiction was generally abolished.
After the Second World War
On September 18, 1944, after the Allies had conquered German soil for the first time, the military government's Proclamation No. 1 ordered the repeal of all German courts in the occupied territories. Only the military courts of the victorious powers existed there. With SMAD order No. 3, the states in the Soviet Zone were established on July 9, 1945. Herbert Schelcher was initially employed as a clerk for the administrative regulations in the state administration of Saxony established with SMAD order 110 of October 22, 1945, but was arrested in February 1946 and died on May 7 of that year in Soviet special camp 1 in Mühlberg / Neuburxdorf .
With the Control Council Act 36, the victorious powers declared the abolition of administrative jurisdiction by the National Socialists to be repealed. However, there was again a lack of political will to reintroduce administrative courts in the Soviet occupation zone. In particular, legal protection against the political and economic transformation of the Soviet occupation zone into a socialist state (e.g. against the expropriations of the land reform ) was undesirable. Administrative acts were therefore immediately final due to the lack of a possibility of contestation. Calling the ordinary courts against administrative decisions has also been drastically restricted. In particular, the ordinance on the enforcement of public authority measures of March 14, 1946 precluded the ordinary courts from being called upon to surrender confiscated items. Judicial reviews of expropriation matters were standardized in the ordinance for the implementation of the law of June 30, 1946 on the transfer of businesses of war and Nazi criminals into the property of the people of July 18, 1946. Alongside these practical considerations were ideological ones. The Soviets and the SED assumed that administrative courts were necessary in capitalist societies, since administrative action was carried out in the interests of the possessing class and therefore required control and correction. This class antagonism is eliminated in socialism; there is therefore no need for an administrative jurisdiction.
The Administrative Court Act
After no administrative jurisdiction had been established in most of the SBZ countries, contrary to Control Council Act 36, the SMAD, with SMAD Order No. 173 on the Restoration and Reorganization of the Administrative Courts of July 8, 1947 , instructed the Prime Ministers of the SBZ countries to draw up appropriate draft laws and to submit to the state parliaments.
In Saxony the government did not submit a draft law. Instead, the state parliament had a draft law from the SED and one from the LDP . There were three main points that made the difference. While the LDP demanded a general clause (that every administrative act could be judicially examined), the SED wanted to introduce the enumeration principle : only those types of administrative acts that were listed in an ordinance of the (SED-led) Ministry of the Interior should be contestable. The composition of the court was just as important. While the LDP wanted independent judges, the SED wanted the function of an administrative court to be performed by a parliamentary committee. Since this contradicted the wording of the Control Council Act, the judges of the administrative court should instead be elected by the state parliament in order to ensure the control of politics over the court. Most recently, the LPD demanded administrative jurisdiction in two instances, while the SED wanted a single-stage procedure.
The alignment of the bloc parties was not yet complete in 1947. So it came to one of the last controversial decisions of the state parliament. In the state parliament session on October 30, 1947, the SED draft was accepted with slight modifications by 54 to 42 votes. Mathematically, there could have been a majority of the democratic parties. However, 12 MPs from the LDP were missing. One important change concerned the enumeration principle. This was included in the law. However, the enumeration itself should not be done by the ministry, but “within the framework of the law”. Since this was a long time coming, the structure of the court stalled accordingly. The Administrative Court Act (VwGG) of October 30, 1947 formed the basis for the State Administrative Court of Saxony.
The amendment laws
On June 21, 1948, the government submitted a draft implementing ordinance to the state parliament. This was referred to the constitutional committee, where it was repeatedly postponed. Ultimately, the Constitutional Committee submitted a new draft law to the plenary session to amend and implement the law of October 30, 1947 on administrative jurisdiction of September 30, 1949. This stipulated a narrow range of responsibilities and was unanimously adopted (now an opposition in the state parliament was no longer possible).
After the state parliament elections in the GDR in 1950, which were carried out as sham elections , the state parliament unanimously nodded the law of 25 May 1950 to amend the laws affecting administrative jurisdiction . It stipulated that the judges at the court no longer had to be qualified to hold judicial office .
The establishment of the court
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On April 9, 1948, the state parliament elected Kurt Ebert (SED, previously SPD) as the court president. This headed the training of people's judges in Saxony. At the request of the CDU on January 8, 1950, when the court would start its work, the ministry announced that all preparations had been made so that the court could start work. Apart from the president, however, no judges have yet been elected.
On May 25, 1950, the state parliament elected the non-lawyer Josef Rambo (CDU) as the new president of the court (on the same day the law was changed to make this possible). However, at the beginning of September he fled to the free west. Therefore, in November 1950, the state parliament elected the state parliament member and pharmacist Magnus Dedek (CDU) as president. On July 7, the state parliament had elected Alfred Zeidler (SED, previously KPD) as vice-president and Hans Flothow (LDP) as full-time judge. The lay judges were also elected from among the ranks of the SED and the bloc parties.
This basically gave the court the opportunity to begin its work. However, Zeidler and Flothow resigned from their offices a short time later. In the state parliament session on July 4, 1941, Franz Ulich (SED, previously SPD) were elected as vice-president and Friedrich Weller (LDP) as judge.
As early as January 1948, the court had been assigned office rooms in the Villa Möckel . In November 1951 it was moved to the building complex of the former Luftwaffe at August-Bebel-Straße 19.
The activity of the court
An activity of the court from 1947 to 1949 cannot be proven. The first verifiable decisions of the court are two decisions from 1950 (both of which were rejected due to lack of jurisdiction). For 1951 the court counted 28 submissions, of which 24 were other submissions and 4 were appeals. Among them were three lawsuits. One of them was withdrawn, the other two rejected as apparently inadmissible.
The end of the judgment
In 1952 the states of the GDR were abolished and districts were created instead . In this context, the administrative court in Dresden was settled without a legal basis or an administrative act. The two full-time judges received a letter of resignation in which the dissolution of the state governments was given as the reason. Administrative courts were only established again in Saxony after the fall of the Wall in 1990. There were now three administrative courts of the first instance, including the Dresden Administrative Court and, as the administrative court of the second instance, the Saxon Higher Administrative Court .
literature
- Julian Lubini: The administrative judiciary in the countries of the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945–1952 (= contributions to the legal history of the 20th century, Volume 82). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-16-153526-0 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Matthias Etzel: The repeal of National Socialist laws by the Allied Control Council (1945-1948). Volume 7 of contributions to the legal history of the 20th century , 1992, ISSN 0934-0955 , ISBN 978-3-16-145994-8 , pp. 102-103 ( online in the Google book search)
- ↑ AN Sachsen 1946, p. 133
- ↑ AM Sachsen 1946, p. 425
- ↑ GBVB Saxony, p. 121
- ↑ SächsGVBl. 1949, p. 658
- ↑ SächsGVBl. 1950, p. 397
Coordinates: 51 ° 2 ′ 13 ″ N , 13 ° 43 ′ 34.5 ″ E