Equal legal protection
Equal legal protection is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Basic Law . It is derived from Article 3 (1) of the Basic Law and Article 20 (3) of the Basic Law and contains the principle that everyone, regardless of their financial resources, must have the same opportunity to avail themselves of state legal protection . The legal equality Enforced by the simple statutory provisions of § § 140 et seq. ZPO on legal aid and legal aid according to § § 76 et seq. FamFG that the older provisions for 1986 Poor Law have replaced. In addition, legal fees are also covered as part of the advisory assistance (BerHG).
Since equality of legal protection is a fundamental right, decisions of the courts that refuse legal aid can be checked by way of a constitutional complaint to determine whether the court of origin was aware of the specific constitutional significance of equality of legal protection. In contrast to this, errors in the application of simple procedural law can only be attacked with the legal remedies contained in the code of civil procedure, because the Federal Constitutional Court is not a super-revision instance. Insofar as the decisions were accessible for review by the Federal Constitutional Court, there have repeatedly been revocations of decisions with which the approval of legal aid was rejected. However, the Federal Constitutional Court did not raise any objections to the statutory regulation in Section 114 ZPO, according to which legal aid may not be granted if the legal dispute has no sufficient prospect of success or if the intended legal action is willful. However, the Federal Constitutional Court intervened if the examination of the legal question was brought forward from the main proceedings to the summary approval process or if an inadmissible anticipation of evidence took place.
