Dozens of judges and public prosecutors are also missing in Bavaria. This has an impact on the criminal proceedings - with sometimes serious consequences.
Munich (dpa/lby) - Prisons in Bavaria have had to release a total of 25 suspects from custody in the past two years because their proceedings took too long. This was announced by the Bavarian Ministry of Justice on request. At the beginning of the week, the German Association of Judges (DRB) published nationwide figures in the “Deutsche Richterzeitung”: In 2021, at least 66 suspects were released from custody for this reason in Germany, in 2020 there were 40 such releases and in 2019 there were even 69 a little more than 2021.
The Bavarian Ministry of Justice reported only two such cases for the pre-Corona year 2019. At 10, 2018 was already at the level of the first Corona year.
"The current cases of release from pre-trial detention again highlight the high workload of many courts and public prosecutors," said DRB federal manager Sven Rebehn. "The criminal justice system still lacks public prosecutors and criminal judges, so that even priority custody cases cannot always be dealt with with the speed required by the rule of law." In addition, many procedures would become more complex because, for example, the amount of data to be evaluated would increase dramatically as a result of digitization.
According to the Ministry of Justice, dozens of judges and public prosecutors were missing in Bavaria as of December 31, 2021. There is an additional need for around 110 judge positions and 169 positions for public prosecutors.
The background to the cases of release from prison is the requirement to speed things up in prison matters. This requirement states that the judiciary must do everything possible to start the main proceedings as quickly as possible. If this is not the case, release from pre-trial detention may result.
"The State Ministry of Justice takes the subject of the requirement to accelerate in detention matters very seriously," said a spokesman for the ministry. The topic is "scheduled for a staff meeting in July".
