With a decision, he wanted to overturn the mask requirement at two schools in Weimar – and has therefore now been sentenced to probation himself. The district court of Erfurt found a family judge guilty of perverting the law and sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment; suspended for probation. Prosecutors had asked for three years in prison and the defense had asked for an acquittal.
In April 2021, the family judge at the Weimar district court ordered that the children at two schools did not have to wear corona masks in class, contrary to the hygiene concept of the Thuringian Ministry of Education that was in force at the time. In the middle of a high phase of the pandemic, he caused national headlines. His decision was later overturned by subsequent authorities. He was not responsible for such decisions.
Prosecutor: Children were “just puppets”
The man made a judgment “that he had intended from the outset,” said the presiding judge at the Erfurt district court in the verdict. He actively generated the process in which he made his decision.
The family judge was specifically looking for children for whose first letters he was responsible, the prosecutor argued. The two children on whom his decision was based were “only puppets for the judge to use to set a beacon against the government measures to contain the pandemic”. In doing so, he trampled on the rule of law.
The lawyer himself denies the allegations. He saw a danger to child development in the obligation to wear masks in schools. In addition, it turned out early on that schools were not drivers of the pandemic. That was the reason for him to extend the children’s parents’ application for mask exemption to their Weimar schools.
The verdict is not yet legally binding. An appeal to the Federal Court of Justice was allowed.