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The monitoring of prisons in German law and practice

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Notes

  1. The competence of this chamber apart from decisions on complaints according to §§ 109 ff. Prison Act is the decision on conditional early release according to §§ 57, 57a Criminal Code. It is a constitutional obligation that a judge or court has to decide on conditional release, see Art. 104 (2) of the Federal Constitution (Grundgesetz = Basic Law). Parole boards with other members than judges therefore are not allowed in German legislation.

  2. See BVerfG NStZ 1996, 511; and BVerfG, decision of 4 July 2006–2 BvR 460/01.

  3. In most cases older than 24, as youth prisons regularly deal with 14- to 24-years-old offenders, see [12, 13]).

  4. The one hour (and further visits) can be split if appropriate. The new legislation of some federal states provides 4 h per month, and additional visits by children, husbands or relevant relatives, see for a summary [29].

  5. See e.g. BVerfG, decision of 23 May 2013–2 BvR 2129/11; BVerfG, decision of 19 January 2016–2 BvR 3030/14).

  6. See BVerfGE 45, 187 ff., 238; 64, 261 ff., 277; 98, 169 ff., 200; 109, 133 ff., 150 f.

  7. For example, prisoners are only allowed to have personal belongings in their cell room to an “adequate amount” (“angemessener Umfang”). This is considered to be an indefinite legal term.

  8. As a very last resort a complaint to the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR) is possible, see Art. 34 ECHR.

  9. This is in contrast to many other European countries who do not provide complaints against individual decisions, but only complaints against laws as a whole and sometimes not in individual cases at all. According to the comparative study of Koeppel [21] an individual complaint to the Constitutional Court was possible in Germany and Poland, whereas such a complaints procedure did not exist in England/Wales, France, and the Netherlands. However, the ordinary complaints procedures in the Netherlands imply the power of the deciding authorities to fully control and - if needed - change the decision of the prison administration even in discretionary cases, see [21], p. 69 ff. For a broader overview over individual constitutional complaints that meanwhile exist in several eastern European states and aim, inter alia, at alleviating the case load for individual human rigths complaints brought to the ECtHR see [19].

  10. See e.g. BVerfGE 116, 69, 85 f. with further references.

  11. See e.g. BVerfGE 109, 133; 116, 69.

  12. The German Juvenile Justice Act (JJA) provides primarily the application of educational measures to 14- to 17-years-old juveniles, but also to young adults (age 18 to 20). Youth prison sentences are seen as a last resort and in practice only about 2% of all juvenile and young adult offenders prosecuted receive a youth prison sentence (between 6 months and 5, exceptionally 10 or in serious murder cases 15 years, §§ 18, 105 JJA, see in detail) [12,9,14].

  13. See [24], P, § 109 note 18 with further references.

  14. See [24], P, § 109 note 129, 130. So far, however, no relevant case law has been published, which may be seen as an indicator for the preventive effectiveness of this rule.

  15. Computed on the base of Statistisches Bundesamt (Ed.): Rechtspflege. Bestand der Gefangenen und Verwahrten in den deutschen Justizvollzugsanstalten nach ihrer Unterbringung auf Haftplätzen des geschlossenen und offenen Vollzugs jeweils zu den Stichtagen 31. März, 31. August und 30. November eines Jahres. Stichtag 31. März 2016. Wiesbaden 2016, 6.

  16. See [30], I ff.

  17. See [22], 166 ff., 171 ff.

  18. See the positive comments of [22], 13–18.

  19. See e.g. [31, 32].

  20. See in summary [24], N, 1104 ff.

  21. Such studies were developed since the early 1980s and continued since then, see e.g. [10]; with regards to prison leaves, transfers to open prisons [16].

  22. Decision of October 14, 2004, reg. nr. 2 BvR 1481/04 (so-called Görgülü-decision), http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/rs20041014_2bvr148104e.html; in print: BVerfGE 111, 307 et seq. All

    published decisions of the German Federal Constitutional Court (from 1998 onwards), are available on

    the Court’s website: www.bverfg.de. Some important decisions, including those mentioned here, are

    available there also in English and French language.

  23. Decision of the FCC (official collection) BVerfGE 128, 326 (headnote 2a) citing earlier decisions

    as established case-law.

  24. BVerfGE 128, 326, §§ 35, 46 et seq.

  25. For example in the recent judgement of the FCC, 15.12.2015–2 BvR 2735/14 on an Italian European Arrest Warrant, and in the so-called Lisbon-decision, FCC, 22.9.2009–2 BvR 2136/09.

  26. Bundesgerichtshof (German Supreme Court), Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 2009, 2463.

  27. Hellig v. Germany - 20999/05, Judgment 7.7.2011 [Section V].

  28. Wenner v. Germany - 62303/13; Judgement of 1 September 2016. The domestic authorities had not examined the necessity of drug substitution treatment with regard to the criteria set by the relevant domestic legislation and medical guidelines, nor accessed the help of expert medical advice. Despite the applicant’s previous medical treatment with drug substitution therapy for seventeen years, no follow-up had been given to the opinions expressed by external doctors on the necessity to consider providing the applicant with that treatment again.

  29. Sokolow v. Germany, 11642/11, lodged on 17 February 2011. At the time of writing (24 November 2016) the case was communicated to the German authorities.

  30. All visits, also the last one are fully documented on the website of the CPT (http://www.cpt.coe.int/en/states/deu.htm), including press releases, the CPT reports, the government’s responses and translation into German. The last visit took place only in November 2015, the report has been published in 2017, see CPT/Inf (2017) 13.

  31. http://www.nationale-stelle.de/index.php?id=74&L=1.

  32. BVerfGE 109, 133, 167, 5 February 2004, App. No. 2 BvR 2029/01; BVerfGE 128, 326, 364 f., 4 May 2011, App. No. 2 BvR 2365/09 et al. Art. 104 (2) GG reads: An act may be punished only if it was defined by a law as a criminal offence before the act was committed.

  33. All decisions can be found in the databank of the ECtHR (http://hudoc.echr.coe.int), some German cases in matters of preventive detention are still pending.

  34. All decisions can be found in the databank of the ECtHR (http://hudoc.echr.coe.int), some German cases in matters of preventive detention are still pending.

    ECtHR, 24 June 1982, App. No. 7906/77, van Droogenbroeck v Belgium; Weeks v United Kingdom (1988) 10 E.H.R.R. 293; Stafford v United Kingdom (2002) 35 E.H.R.R. 32; M. v Germany, 17 December 2009, App. No. 19359/04; Grosskopf v Germany, 21 October 2010, App. No. 24478/03; Kallweit v Germany, 13 January 2011, App. No. 17792/07.

  35. BVerfGE 128, 326, 4 May 2011, App. No. 2 BvR 2333/08 and others.

  36. This was already spelled out seven years earlier (FCC 5 February 2004, App. No. 2 BvR 2029/01, cf. [15]) but not adequately implemented.

  37. Bergmann v Germany, 7 January 2016, App. No. 23279/14, § 96 ff.

  38. BVerfGE 19, 342 (345).

  39. The first was a decision of the Federal Constitutional Court relating to Juvenile Justice in 2006, BVerfGE 116, 69 (90). See also FCC, 13.11.2007–2 BvR 939/07; and the Constitutional Court of Berlin, VerfGH Berlin, Beschl. v. 03.11.2009–184/07. Other courts, however, have not adopted this view, namely the Constitutional Court of Bavaria VerfGH Bayern Vf. 3-VI-09, Vf. 3 VI/09.

  40. Recommendation (2006) 13 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the use of remand in custody, the conditions in which it takes place and the provision of safeguards against abuse.

  41. FCC, 17.10.2012–2 BvR 736/11 (= published in Strafverteidiger 2013, p. 521 et seq.).

  42. FCC, 7. 11. 2012–2 BvR 1567/11.

  43. Vinter et al. v. United Kingdom - 66,069/09, 130/10 and 3896, Judgment 9.7.2013 [Grand Chamber]. It remains to be seen whether this judgement will be confirmed or weakend by the decision of the Grand Chamber in the case of Hutchinson v. United Kingdom - 57,592/08 (referred in July 2015).

  44. FCC in the official collection BVerfGE 45, 187.

  45. He has visiting rights comparable to that of the CPT, during his visit 2006 his priority was to see prisons where preventive detention was executed, Commissioner of Human Rights [2].

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  1. University of Greifswald, Faculty of Law and Economics, Greifswald, Germany

    Frieder Dünkel & Christine Morgenstern

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Dünkel, F., Morgenstern, C. The monitoring of prisons in German law and practice. Crime Law Soc Change 70, 93–112 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-017-9721-3

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