German Federal Court President, Bettina Limperg, has expressed skepticism towards a fundamental reform of the criminal procedure code. The current system in the criminal process, she said, is a “balanced system” that carefully weighs the interests of prosecution and the rights of the accused.
Limperg’s remarks were in response to a proposal by Hesse’s Justice Minister, Christian Heinz, who in a guest article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung advocated for the restriction of the immediacy principle in criminal proceedings to achieve faster proceedings. The principle, which has been a guiding principle in German criminal proceedings for over 125 years, ensures that the trial is conducted as quickly as possible.
The Federal Court President also addressed the question of whether the judiciary in Germany is politicized. In her opinion, this is not the case and Germany’s judiciary is even more independent in comparison to other countries. While there may be individual, conscious statements in the judiciary, Limperg emphasized the existence of a strong error correction culture in the German legal system, which can correct such instances.