Data retention regulated
Justice ministers are calling for more effective penal orders
mne/dpa
11/10/2022, 8:27 p.m
The judiciary can hardly keep up with criminal prosecution. At the meeting of the heads of department, the countries are demanding more powers for their authorities with a view to penal orders. They hope that this will speed up the process.
The justice ministers of the federal states have spoken out in favor of a “moderate expansion of the penal order procedure” in order to relieve the public prosecutor’s office and the courts. Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann was asked to submit a corresponding proposal with the aim of strengthening the judiciary, the ministry said in Mainz.
“The high level of regulation in criminal procedural law and the increasing complexity of extensive criminal proceedings in particular” are increasingly presenting the authorities with major challenges, complained Herbert Mertin, Minister of Justice in Rhineland-Palatinate. The procedures were taking longer and longer, also due to the pandemic. Buschmann’s party colleague demands that “a prison sentence of one year and three months can also be imposed by penalty order” if the facts speak against a suspended sentence.
A penalty order is a conviction without a trial. The purpose is the simple and quick punishment of simple crimes. This instrument can be used, for example, to determine fines or the withdrawal of a driver’s license. In certain cases, a suspended sentence of up to one year can be imposed, but not a prison sentence.
No occasional data retention
There will also be additional powers for investigators in the fight against online crime. However, the state justice ministers have spoken out against the data retention demanded by the Union without cause. Instead, they voted for Buschmann’s preferred “quick freeze” procedure for an application.
With the quick freeze procedure, telecommunications providers are obliged to store data on individual users for a certain period of time if there is an initial suspicion – «freezing», so to speak. However, this should only be possible in the case of serious crimes such as manslaughter, extortion or child abuse. In addition, a judge must approve the measure. For example, the storage of data from a specific radio cell around the crime scene or the location data of the mobile phones of a victim’s close relatives is conceivable.
“We are united by the massive fundamental rights concerns about the planned chat control,” said Buschmann, welcoming the decision. Digital civil rights are not second-class civil rights.
underfunded judiciary
Federal and state justice ministers, on the other hand, disagreed on budget issues. The federal states are calling on the traffic light to implement the rule of law pact 2.0 promised in the coalition agreement without any compromises. Specifically, they demand that the planned 220 million euros be paid out in full by 2027. They are also demanding annual funding of 350 million by 2025 for the digitization of the judiciary.
The German Association of Judges joined the demand: “A broad-based investment offensive by the federal and state governments is needed to strengthen the judiciary in the long term and bring it up to date technically,” said DRB chairmen Andrea Titz and Joachim Lüblinghoff. The coalition must keep its promises.
In addition to a digital pact with the federal states, multi-year co-financing of new jobs by the federal government is required. “Without significantly more staff, the judiciary will hardly be able to cope with the digital upheaval in parallel with the steadily growing core tasks in the judiciary,” explained Lüblinghoff. Buschmann recently promised the federal states 200 million euros for projects to digitize their judicial authorities in the coming years.