Monika Harms

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Monika Harms (born September 29, 1946 in Berlin ) is a German lawyer . From 2006 to 2011 she was Attorney General at the Federal Court of Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Life

Monika Harms grew up in Frankfurt am Main and now lives married in Hamburg . From 1974 to 1980 she worked in the Hanseatic city as a public prosecutor for commercial criminal matters , then until 1983 as a judge at the regional court and then until 1987 at the Hamburg finance court .

Harms, who has been a member of the CDU since 1969 , is an expert in criminal tax law . She has been teaching at the Federal Finance Academy in Brühl since 1990 and is one of the co-editors of the journal for commercial and tax criminal law and of Praxis tax criminal law .

In 1987 Harms became a judge at the Federal Court of Justice . There she took over the chairmanship of the Leipzig- based 5th Criminal Senate in 1999 . In this role she worked on the revision decisions against Egon Krenz because of the fatal shots at the inner-German border (1999), as well as against the “ La Belle ” assassins (2003). She was also involved in the reversal of the Augsburg judgment against Max Strauss , the son of the former Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss , for tax evasion .

On June 1, 2006, she became Attorney General. In this function, she ordered 40 police raids in the run-up to the G8 summit in Heiligendamm on suspicion of the formation of terrorist groups (criminal offense under Section 129a StGB ), which have since been declared illegal by the Federal Court of Justice.

On December 6, 2007, Harms found that the sentence against Marinus van der Lubbe , a Dutchman who had been convicted in the Reichstag fire , had been overturned . He was sentenced to death some 74 years earlier after being accused of arson in the Reichstag on February 27, 1933 and of high treason .

On January 24, 2008, Harms was awarded the honorary professorship by the Faculty of Law and Economics at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg . When she reached the age of 65, she resigned from her position in September 2011. Harald Range , Attorney General of Celle, was appointed as her successor .

Harms is a member of the Board of Trustees of the German Foundation for Monument Protection . From 2010 to 2014 Harms was chairwoman of the University Council of Leipzig University and a member of the University Council of the University of Music and Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig .

criticism

In several decisions in 2007 and 2008, the Federal Court of Justice objected to Monika Harms' approach to anti-terrorism investigations, whereupon politicians were often asked for personal consequences.

In October 2007, Monika Harms was awarded the negative Big Brother Award in the category “Authorities & Administration” for tracking and monitoring G8 critics with the help of terrorism allegations . The award was justified in particular with the "systematic letter controls in Hamburg" initiated by Harms and with the collection of body odor samples from G8 critics that she initiated .

In an open letter to the Attorney General Monika Harms in August 2007, the signatories - including prominent scientists such as Wilhelm Heitmeyer , Elmar Altvater , Ralf Fücks , Lawrence D. Berg , Frances Fox Piven  - criticized the arrest warrant against the Berlin scientist Andrej Holm . Such arguments make any scientific activity appear potentially criminal. The reasons given by the Federal Prosecutor's Office represent a direct threat to everyone who engages in critical science, journalism and art and who vouch for them in public with their names .

Wiretapping against lawyers and journalists

The director of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk , Jobst Plog , had spoken of a massive attack on the freedom of the radio and the press after wiretapping against journalists of the Tagesschau . The press spokesman for the German Association of Journalists (DJV) , Hendrik Zörner , criticizes the action against journalists as being absolutely unacceptable. Journalists must not be victims of wiretapping, especially if the journalist concerned was not involved in the proceedings . The case against the Tagesschau journalists fits seamlessly into a chain of similar events. From 1999 to 2005, the number of people affected by phone tapping more than doubled.

The chairman of the Republican Bar Association , Britta Eder , criticized the eavesdropping measures of the federal prosecutor's office as unlawful. She applied to the investigating judges of the Federal Court of Justice to delete the recorded telephone calls and destroy the minutes. The editors-in-chief of major Berlin daily newspapers, including Berliner Zeitung , BZ and Berliner Morgenpost , complained to Federal Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries about the work of the Federal Prosecutor's Office under Monika Harms. The chief editors urge the Federal Prosecutor to refrain from investigative methods at the expense of freedom of the press .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ First federal prosecutor: Monika Harms n-tv.de, May 30, 2006
  2. ↑ Ursula Knapp: Who is Monika Harms? ( Memento of December 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Der Tagesspiegel July 1, 2007, p. 2 - portrait
  3. ^ Federal Court of Justice: Decision of the 5th Criminal Senate , October 11, 2005
  4. ↑ Federal Court of Justice: Decision of the 3rd Criminal Senate , December 20, 2007
  5. ↑ Federal Prosecutor General: The judgment against Marinus van der Lubbe was overturned , January 10, 2008
  6. ↑ Reichstag fire: death sentence finally overturned . In: taz , January 11, 2008
  7. ↑ Martin Luther University: Martin Luther University awards honorary professorship to Monika Harms , January 24, 2008
  8. ^ Report of an event with Monika Harms. ( Memento from July 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: Leipziger Volkszeitung ; Retrieved July 12, 2011
  9. ↑ Harald Range becomes the new Attorney General. Berliner Morgenpost, November 4, 2011, accessed on November 4, 2011 .
  10. ↑ Range becomes Attorney General. Spiegel Online , November 4, 2011, accessed November 4, 2011 .
  11. ↑ Board and committees of the German Foundation for Monument Protection Homepage German Foundation for Monument Protection
  12. ↑ leipziginfo.de ( memento of July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on July 10, 2014
  13. ↑ Information on the university website , accessed on January 10, 2014
  14. ↑ excesses without consequences . In: taz , January 8, 2008
  15. ↑ a b Open letter to the Federal Prosecutor General at the Federal Court of Justice Monika Harms (PDF; 114 kB) In: Die Zeit , No. 33, 2007
  16. ^ Accusation: Research . Zeit Online , August 10, 2007, 2:00 p.m., updated on September 23, 2009
  17. ↑ a b Tagesschau (online edition): Journalists listened to: research under state supervision ( memento of December 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), November 10, 2007
  18. ↑ Berlin editors-in-chief protest against mail control: “Our informants can no longer be sure” (tagesschau.de archive), November 9, 2007
personal data
SURNAME Harms, Monika
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and attorney general
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin