The Deutscher Richterbund (DRB), Germany’s official association of judges, has called for changes to laws governing state prosecutors. It says state governments should no longer be able to intervene in individual criminal proceedings through directives, warning that such powers could be misused for political purposes.
The debate has intensified after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) won a state election in Saxony-Anhalt and appeared likely to take control of the government there. The DRB said this raised concerns that “extremists in government” could steer criminal investigations. The party has drawn scrutiny from German domestic intelligence agencies, which regard sections of it as a threat to the constitutional democratic order, according to the supplied source.
DRB executive director Sven Rebehn said the priority was preventing the partisan use of public prosecutors’ offices. He said state justice ministries can currently interfere even in individual proceedings, and that relying on a tradition of political restraint offered no effective legal protection because it could be abandoned.
German prosecutors are part of the executive branch, unlike in many other countries. State and federal ministries can issue instructions on individual cases, including whether information from an intelligence agency should be disclosed, or how prosecutors should interpret and apply a law. The source says there is currently no mechanism to review such directives, although ministries are barred from issuing unlawful instructions and prosecutors from following them.
Berlin state prosecutor Margarete Koppers said the rule of law was at risk when its rules were politically abused, pointing to judicial controversies under authoritarian-populist governments in Poland and Hungary. The DRB and Koppers favor removing ministries’ power to issue directives, but criminal lawyer Gül Pinar argued that directives should at least be documented so affected parties can challenge their legality. She said prosecutors should not necessarily become independent, because executive oversight can also serve democratic accountability.
The Federal Justice Ministry told Legal Tribune Online that existing laws provide sufficient safeguards and that keeping prosecutors within the executive branch ensures parliamentary oversight. The source also notes that the European Court of Justice warned in 2019 that political influence over German prosecutors could affect the operation of European arrest warrants.