Recently, a judge sat in his elevated seat in an LED-lit plastic-and-carpet courtroom on Berlin’s Kirchstrasse and gave the world a glimpse of his political thinking. In the dock: a “Last Generation” activist who had glued herself to a street a few weeks earlier in protest at climate destruction. The young woman had declared in court that she did not want to harm anyone. On the contrary, she wants to protect life on earth with her protest. “Cockroaches too?” the judge retorted snippy. “And the dinosaurs are also extinct. Humans will die out anyway, I’m firmly convinced of that. It can’t be prevented, they’re too stupid for that.”
When judges give their personal opinion on things that are not legally relevant, they always walk a fine line. On the one hand, of course, they should not be faceless law machines. It’s good if they add a personal touch. You shouldn’t just rattle off paragraphs either. They should speak as humans. It makes sense if they appeal to the accused in a way that also makes a difference, i.e. not in a formulaic way, but authentically. On the other hand, it can quickly turn offensive if a magistrate thinks he has to assess the “stupidity” of mankind.
A few years ago, the father of the Winnenden school shooter was on trial at the Stuttgart Regional Court because he had negligently not secured his sporting weapon properly in front of the child. He was found guilty, and the presiding judge turned to him as he reasoned: “We would have liked to talk to you. You needn’t have feared that this chamber would deny you the respect you deserve.” The judge went on to say that the father’s stubborn silence made it difficult for “many people” to respect him. And: The judge then told quite a bit about his own life. Of “joy and sorrow” that raising children brings with it. Everyone had to listen.
Luckily it’s rarely that bad. Defendants can sometimes be irrelevant. Judges can’t. Almost everyone takes that to heart. Hardly ever has a judge exaggerated as much as a magistrate did recently who said to a thief who had relapsed during his probation period in the summary court on Tempelhofer Damm in Berlin: “What’s the shit?” And, as if she wasn’t just sitting in court about his crime, but about his whole life: “Still living with my parents at the age of 26, ts, ts, ts…”
To which there is really only one reasonable answer. High Court, I don’t know what your business is.
At this point, Verena Mayer and Ronen Steinke write in weekly alternation about their experiences at German courts.
(Photo: Bernd Schifferdecker (Illustration))