Paul Mintz

Paul Mintz ( Latvian Pauls Mincs ; born June 30, 1868 in Daugavpils (Dünaburg), Vitebsk governorate ; † 1941 in the Taischet camp ) was a Latvian lawyer and politician , minister.

Life

Paul Mintz was born the son of a businessman in Dünaburg. He attended high school in Riga , which he graduated in 1885. He then studied law in Saint Petersburg and at the University of Dorpat , where he obtained a master's degree in law in 1892. Initially he worked as a lawyer , and at the same time he was the managing director of the Baltic branch of the Society for the Dissemination of Enlightenment among the Jews in Russia (Russian О́бщество для распростране́ния просвеще́ния месижду евре́ями в Ро евре́ями в Ро ). From 1917 Mintz taught as a lecturer at the Universities of Moscow , Tartu and Riga . In 1921 he became professor of criminology , criminal law and criminal procedural law at the University of Latvia in Riga. He was the chairman of the Association of Jewish Lawyers in Latvia.

Mintz began his political career in 1918 in the Latvian independence movement , for which he was a deputy first in the provisional Latvian National Council and then in the constituent assembly . Most of the Latvian Constitution, which is still in force today , was significantly influenced by him. In the years 1919–1921 ( Ulmani's government ), Paul Mintz was state controller with the rank of minister and labor minister of the Republic of Latvia and, in the meantime, president of the Latvian Court of Audit . He was a member of the Jewish National Democratic Party ( Latvijas žīdu nacionāldemokrātiskā partija ).

As chairman of the commission for a new criminal code , Paul Mintz was in charge of the Latvian penal code of 1933 in the 1920s. The latter was rather progressive for its time. Mintz represented Latvia at the international Conferences for Criminal Law in London in 1925 and in Berlin in 1935 , at the International Commission for Criminal Law in Bern in 1934 and at the International Bureau for the Unification of Criminal Law in Bucharest . He remained one of the few warning voices against the authoritarian tendencies of the 1930s in Latvia; As a criminal lawyer, he tried to mediate between the formalistic criminal law thinking of German characteristics and the criminal justice system of Latvia, which was still shaped by the classic Russian school of the Tsarist times.

In 1940 the Soviet occupation forces banished him and his family to Siberia , where he died in 1941 in the Taischeter camp.

family

Paul Mintz's brother, the doctor Wladimir Mintz (1872–1945), died in Buchenwald concentration camp .

plant

Paul Mintz was considered the most important representative of liberal jurisprudence in independent Latvia, and his political influence was great in the 1920s. He dedicated his particular commitment to a European understanding of law; the maintenance of the rule of law and the commitment to peaceful coexistence in Europe shaped him until the end of his life. Today Tel Aviv University honors him with the “Prof. Paul Mintz Hall ”in the Buchmann Faculty of Law.

Fonts

• The doctrine of the aid . A treatise presented to the Law Faculty of the Imperial University of Dorpat for the purpose of obtaining the degree of Magister in Criminal Law. Müllersche Buchdruckerei, Riga 1892. ( digitized version ) of the University of Tartu

literature

• Art. Paul Mintz . In: Grigorijs Smirins: Outstanding Jewish personalities in Latvia . Nacionālais Apgāds, Riga 2003, ISBN 9984-26-114-X , p. 18.
• Margers Vestermanis : Jews in Riga. A historical guide . Edition Temmen, Bremen 1996, ISBN 3-86108-263-2 .

Footnotes

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Art. Paul Mintz . In: Grigorijs Smirins: Outstanding Jewish personalities in Latvia . Nacionālais Apgāds, Riga 2003, p. 18.
2. ↑ Art. Vladimir Mintz . In: Grigorijs Smirins: Outstanding Jewish personalities in Latvia . Nacionālais Apgāds, Riga 2003, p. 23.