Reich Justice Laws
- Reich Laws of Justice in the Reich Law Gazette , year 1877
Courts Constitution Act
Code of Civil Procedure
Code of Criminal Procedure
Bankruptcy rules
The Reich Justice Acts are those laws that were passed in the German Reich in 1877 and came into force on October 1, 1879. They comprised the Courts Constitution Act , the Code of Civil Procedure , the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Bankruptcy Code with the associated introductory laws. In a broader sense, the other Reich laws that were added in good time before the four main laws came into force in 1878 and 1879 can also be added to standardize the judiciary, such as the Lawyers' Act, the Court Fees Act and other fee scales, the law on consular jurisdiction and the law of contestation, all of them expressly entered into force at the same time as the Courts Constitution Act or the bankruptcy code.
With the exception of the bankruptcy code, which was replaced by an insolvency code on January 1, 1999 , the Reich justice laws still apply today. However, their content has been changed significantly in many areas and the texts have been repeatedly published in the Federal Law Gazette. An important aid to interpretation in the early days were the “Complete Materials on the Reich Laws of Justice” from 1880, published by Carl Hahn in four volumes. This was followed by extensive commentary literature on the individual laws.
The importance of the Reich Justice Laws lies primarily in the standardization of the law in the field of procedural law for ordinary jurisdiction . Although the Reich Criminal Code in 1871 had already introduced criminal law applicable throughout Germany , the structure of the courts and the course of the proceedings were still regulated by, in some cases, widely differing state law. The Reich justice laws helped. In the area of civil law, legal unity in procedural law was achieved long before uniform substantive law ( Civil Code of 1896).
When it came into force in 1879, uniform types of court and uniform procedural rules existed for the first time throughout the entire empire, because even in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation , the German emperors had not succeeded in creating binding uniform laws against the particularist efforts of the individual states for the entire empire. For the first time, all non-state jurisdiction was abolished.
The most important achievements of the Reich Justice Acts include unrestricted access to courts, the introduction of the principles of publicity and oral expression in the proceedings, the abolition of non-state courts, the safeguarding of judicial independence and the introduction of the four-part judiciary with the official , rural and upper state - and Reichsgericht (today: Bundesgerichtshof ).
literature
-
The entire material on the Reich justice laws . 8 volumes. Edited by C. Hahn, continued by B. Mugdan . R. v. Decker's Verlag, Berlin 1879–98.
- 1. GVG . Dept. 1, digitized via Cologne University Library. Dept. 2, digitized via Cologne University Library
- 2. ZPO . Dept. 1, digitized via ULB Düsseldorf
- 3. StPO . Dept. 1, digitized via Cologne University Library. Dept. 2, digitized via Cologne University Library
- 4. KO , AnfG . Digitized via Cologne University Library
- 5. ZVG .
- 6. HGB . Digitized via ULB Düsseldorf
- 7. FGG . Digitized via Cologne University Library
- 8th Amendment Act. Digitized via Cologne University Library
- Gregor Biebl: Bavaria's Minister of Justice v. Fäustle and the Reich Justice Laws. A contribution to German federalism in the Bismarckian era. Aktiv Druck & Verlag, Ebelsbach 2003, ISBN 3-932653-15-7 .
- Otto Rudolf Kissel: 125 years of imperial justice laws. In: Neue Juristische Wochenschrift , 57 (2004), pp. 2872–2876.
