标题：The Untenable Situation of German Criminal Law: Against Quantitative Overloading, Qualitative Overcharging, and the Overexpansion of Criminal Justice
摘要：It is a well-established fact that German criminal trial courts are unacceptably and unreasonably overloaded. The German Federal Constitutional Court— Bundesverfassungsgericht , BVerfG—and the Federal Supreme Court of Justice— Bundesgerichtshof , BGH—frankly admit this fact. Even those legal scholars who are critical towards trial courts emphasize such overloading. This overloading is aggravated in the context of austerity measures, which seem to be based on a system that can briefly be described as follows: In principle, the BGH is not, if ever then only slightly, affected, and the State Courts of Appeals— Oberlandesgerichte , OLG—are not affected in an extensive manner. In contrast, the trial courts fare differently: The Higher District Courts — Landgerichte , LG—are typically severely affected by such austerity measures, while the Lower District Courts — Amtsgerichte , AG—are affected brutally. Pursuant to the authors’ view, this practice demonstrates an evident disregard for the trial courts, despite the fact that their speedy as well as convincing settlement of criminal cases is of the utmost importance for the law in action and a constitutive element of criminal proceedings under the rule of law. Hence, the guarantee of an effective criminal justice system — Gewährleistung einer effektiven Strafrechtspflege —is rightly recognized as a fundamental element of the rule of law.
