Preliminary investigation
Preliminary investigations are investigations by a public prosecutor's office that are intended to justify initial suspicions and thus enable the initiation of a formal investigation .
The German Code of Criminal Procedure does not contain any express regulations on investigative measures before an initial suspicion is affirmed; the admissibility per se and the scope of the public prosecutor's authority to create an initial suspicion are therefore extremely controversial in the literature. It is true that preliminary investigations in individual cases are the only way to clear up a crime that would otherwise never reach the knowledge of the law enforcement authorities, especially in the area of organized crime and in the domestic environment. However, there is a risk of abuse by law enforcement authorities, as the lack of legal regulation means that the suspects do not benefit from the protective regulations of the preliminary investigation. Furthermore, systematic preliminary investigations are not suitable for preventing criminal offenses and merely tie up additional resources for the public prosecutor's offices.
Some legal systems expressly provide for preliminary investigations, for example the Saxon state law contains a basis for carrying out preliminary investigations by the Constitutional Court of the Free State of Saxony in the context of impeachment proceedings against members of the Saxon state parliament; This is because the public prosecutor's office, being bound by instructions to the Minister of Justice, could not investigate independently in such proceedings.
literature
- Sandra Forkert-Hosser: Preliminary investigations in criminal procedural law: collection and use of data prior to initial suspicion . Peter Lang , Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 3631598629
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Haas: The Constitutional Court of the Free State of Saxony . BWV Verlag , Berlin 2010, ISBN 3830521758 , p. 231ff