Open cases are piling up in public prosecutors nationwide – there were more than 900,000 last year. The German Association of Judges sees the reasons, among other things, in the lack of staff in the judiciary.
According to the German Association of Judges, there are more and more unfinished cases in public prosecutors’ offices in Germany. Last year, 906,536 procedures were open. Within two years, the number of unprocessed files had increased by a quarter. In 2022 there were still 840,727 open procedures; in 2021 there were 727,021.
The figures are based on a survey of the judicial administrations of the federal states carried out by the German Judges’ Newspaper published by the Association of Judges. Only the proceedings against named defendants were taken into account, as it was said.
Significant increase in Hamburg
According to the information, the situation has worsened, particularly in Hamburg. In a two-year comparison, the number of cases still to be processed in the Hanseatic city has increased by 70 percent to 39,000 (2021: 22,900; 2022: 30,800). In Bremen, an increase of 51 percent to 15,426 procedures (2021: 10,241) was registered from 2021 to 2023.
Saxony follows with an increase of 39 percent from 29,915 to 41,474 open cases. Thuringia is close behind with 34 percent and 28,322 unfinished procedures. In Berlin, on the other hand, there was only an increase of 6 percent in the past two years. The capital reported 36,840 open cases at the end of 2023.
Saxony-Anhalt is the only federal state to have recorded a decline in open procedures since 2021. According to the information, there were 20,351 unprocessed cases there at the end of 2023, compared to 22,111 two years earlier. However, the reason for this was a special effect, it was said: an investigation involving thousands of fraud cases was completed there last year.
Judges’ Association complains about “depleted criminal justice system”
According to the Association of Judges, public prosecutors nationwide received around 5.4 million new cases last year – more than ever before. Two years earlier there were around 4.7 million new arrivals. The Federal Managing Director of the Association of Judges, Sven Rebehn, sees, among other things, an increase in cases of hate and hate speech online as one reason for the development.
There are also increased crimes under the Residence Act and more cases in the area of child pornography. “A criminal justice system that is depleted of personnel is increasingly unable to keep up with developments,” said Rebehn to the dpa news agency.