Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office

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Forecourt of the Hanover public prosecutor's office with waiting reporters

The Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office is a criminal prosecution and enforcement authority in the state of Lower Saxony . The public prosecutor's office is located in Hanover at Volgersweg 67 and in a branch at Vahrenwalder Straße 6–8. With around 350 employees, it is the largest in Lower Saxony (see also the list of German public prosecutors ). The senior public prosecutor is Henning Meier.

Organization and responsibility

The Hanover public prosecutor's office is responsible for investigating and enforcing criminal matters in the Hanover regional court district. This includes the district courts in Hanover, Burgwedel, Hameln, Neustadt am Rübenberge, Springe and Wennigsen.

In addition to being responsible for general criminal offenses and those arising from commercial and environmental criminal law , the Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office has special responsibility for

  • Combating violent, pornographic or other writings that are harmful to minors,
  • Corruption offenses,
  • Combating politically and religiously motivated terrorism.

In addition, the authority for the state of Lower Saxony has special responsibility for the prosecution of Nazi violent crimes, which last led to an indictment in August 2014 (see NS trials ). The public prosecutor's office worked closely with the Hanover Jewish community , which independently investigated cases and witnesses. In the main state archive in Hanover there is a finding aid on the NS investigation files of this public prosecutor's office.

The higher-level authority is the General Public Prosecutor's Office in Celle.

Personnel and procedures

The Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office has 354 employees (as of December 31, 2014), including

You work in five areas (“Central Tasks” and four main departments) and 18 departments, each headed by a senior public prosecutor. You will work on criminal matters in departments together with public prosecutors as well as senior and public prosecutors . The files are kept by employees in several service units.

The authority is led by a senior public prosecutor :

  • at least 1949–1963: Wilhelm Landwehr,
  • at least 1976 to 1993: Hans-Georg Hinkelmann
  • 1998–2013: Manfred Wendt,
  • 2013–2016: Jörg Fröhlich,
  • since 2016: Henning Meier.

In 2015, the authority carried out over 103,000 proceedings against known perpetrators and over 57,000 proceedings against unknown perpetrators. After the conclusion of a procedure, the judicial officers of the public prosecutor's office initiate the execution of sentences , more than 17,000 times in 2015.

Public criticism

On the forecourt of the Hanover public prosecutor's office, former Federal President Christian Wulff speaks out after his acquittal

The public prosecutor's office in Hanover is particularly exposed to public criticism. Several high-profile cases caused some media to doubt that the agency was working objectively. In the 2000s, the chief public prosecutor Uwe Görlich maintained connections with the Hanoverian red light district at the Steintor ; Christine Kröger accused him of covering up illegal prostitution. In the legal miscarriage of Ralf Witte , the authorities' investigations were critically reported, which led to five years of unjustified imprisonment; A perversion of justice proceedings was initiated against the responsible public prosecutors . The Lower Saxony Minister of Justice Bernd Busemann apologized to Witte in 2009 because of the actions of the Hanover public prosecutor's office.

Since 2012, the Hanover public prosecutor's office has been under closer public scrutiny for two preliminary investigations against prominent politicians, without being prepared for this special role. In the investigations against the politicians Christian Wulff in 2012 and Sebastian Edathy in 2014, the public prosecutor was accused of having passed information from the ongoing proceedings to the public and of having neither kept moderation in dealing with these prominent accused nor had sufficient experience with the increased media interest. In this matter, the prosecutor at the determined District Court Göttingen 2015 against the superior Attorney General on Celle Court Frank Lüttig but on suspicion of betrayal of secrets, the procedure was established.

Building history

Otto Hodler built the main building on Volgersweg near Raschplatz from 1951 to 1952 in the form of post-war modernism .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Deviating from this, the construction period 1952–1956 is named for the “district court”, whose original main entrance was oriented towards Hamburger Allee . Between 1983 and 1985 the building was partially replaced by higher new buildings by the architects Storch & Ehlers for the regional court and public prosecutor's office; compare Helmut Knocke , Hugo Thielen : Volgersweg 1. In: this: Hanover. Art and culture lexicon . New edition, 4th, updated and expanded edition. To Klampen, Springe 2007, ISBN 978-3-934920-53-8 , p. 210.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Public Prosecutor's Offices and General Public Prosecutor's Offices in Lower Saxony. Organization and responsibility. In: staatsanwaltschaften.niedersachsen.de. Retrieved March 30, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Public prosecutor's offices and general public prosecutor's offices in Lower Saxony: indictment of Nazi crimes. In: staatsanwaltschaften.niedersachsen.de. September 15, 2014, accessed March 30, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Antje Niewisch-Lennartz : Answer to a small written question - printed matter 17/2596 -. (PDF; 145 kB) In: www.landtag-niedersachsen.de. Retrieved March 30, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Anke Quast: After the Liberation. Jewish communities in Lower Saxony since 1945 - the example of Hanover . In: Publications of the Working Group on the History of Lower Saxony (after 1945) . tape 17 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-89244-447-1 , p. 324 .
  5. ^ Andreas Eichmüller: The database of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin on all West German criminal proceedings for Nazi crimes. In: Jürgen Finger, Sven Keller, Andreas Wirsching (eds.): From law to history. Files from Nazi trials as sources of contemporary history. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-525-35500-8 , pp. 231-237, here p. 232.
  6. ↑ Personnel (PDF). In: Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office (online).
  7. ↑ Organization and responsibility. In: Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office. (Website).
  8. ^ Rudolf Augstein : Dear mirror reader. In: Der Spiegel . February 16, 1950; other than Moritz Pfeil : A certain press, a certain judiciary. The Dohrn case study. In: Der Spiegel . November 20, 1963. Landwehr was born on July 1, 1903 and served the Nazi regime as senior judicial officer , see Helmut Kramer : Richter in front of the court. The legal processing of the special jurisdiction. In: National Socialist Special Jurisdiction. (= Legal History of North Rhine-Westphalia. Volume 15). Ministry of Justice of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Nordhausen 2007, pp. 121–172, here p. 132 (PDF) .
  9. ↑ The Federal Republic of Germany. Part of the state of Lower Saxony. Heymann, Cologne 1976, p. 215 (excerpt) ; The Federal Republic of Germany. State Handbook. State edition of Lower Saxony. Heymann, Cologne 1993, p. 167 (excerpt) . See also affairs: Complete Idiot. In: Der Spiegel . August 6, 1990.
  10. ↑ Alexander Wiemerslage: New authority at the Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office. Press release from the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice, October 28, 2013.
  11. ^ Marika Tödt: New head of authority at the Hanover public prosecutor's office. Press release by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice, August 24, 2016.
  12. ↑ a b procedure. PDF. In: Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office. (Website).
  13. ↑ Organization and responsibility. In: Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office. (on-line).
  14. ↑ Christine Kröger: In case of doubt for the public prosecutor. In: Weser courier . May 13, 2010; Swept under the robe. In: ibid., May 15, 2010.
  15. ↑ Landeszeitung Lüneburg: "The supervisory authorities have failed" - lawyer Schwenn wants to hold the Hanoverian judiciary responsible for misjudgments in the abuse process. In: Press portal , September 16, 2010.
  16. ↑ Five years behind bars - the public prosecutor's office withheld exonerating material. In: Panorama. No. 713, NDR, June 25, 2009, excerpt from the program on YouTube (length 7:27 min.), Script for the program (PDF).
  17. ^ Klaus Wallbaum: Public prosecutor's office under criticism. Case by case. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung . February 16, 2014.
  18. ↑ Zacharias Zacharakis: Attorney in distress. In: The time . 19th February 2014.
  19. ^ Friedrich Lindau : Hanover. Reconstruction and destruction. The city in dealing with its architectural identity. 2nd, revised edition. Schlüter, Hannover 2001, ISBN 3-87706-607-0 , especially p. 326 (digitized from Google books ).