Unrechtsstaat
Unjust state is a pejorative term used for a State which is not a state of law. This is not a legal but a political concept.
Conceptual content
According to Horst Sendler it is indicative of a state of injustice that it lacks that the realization of the right sought and achieved on the whole. Of this, some legal and constitutional violations a State not yet to the wrong state, as they sometimes occur in constitutional states. Even a country is not already then be described as " unjust state " if he does not particularly does not match the model of the classic civil law and the federal German law concept. On the other hand, do not rule the term " rogue state " from that there are also areas are in such a state, where there is rule of law and justice is done. Gerd Roell corner keeps contrast it is crucial that an unjust state does not presuppose the equality of all people. In contrast to the historic " non-law states " could be wrongly States law states according to the state of historical development.
Use in legal texts
The term " rogue state " was used in a proclamation of the German President Heinrich Lübke from 1963 in which it was June 17 declared a national day of remembrance. In a modified form as " unjust regime ", the term is 17 sentence 2 Unification Treaty in Art - " iniquitous SED regime " in the formulation - used, as in the Second Law to calculate criminal statute of limitations of 26 March 1993 and in Article 315a EGStGB where each of the " SED regime of injustice " is mentioned. In the phrase " National Socialist injustice regime ", the term is also used in § 1 of the law abolishing National Socialist injustice judgments in criminal justice.
In Remer process, the court In 1953, in its judgment, the argument of the prosecutor Fritz Bauer, " that the state Hitler is not a law, but an unjust state " was:
" The Trial Chamber is of the opinion that the National Socialist State is no rule of law, but an unjust state was, did not serve the best interests of the German people. It need not be discussed here in more detail on the question of the constitutionality of the Nazi state. All that the German people, from the Reichstag fire on 30 July 1934, and November 9, 1938, have to go through, was crying injustice, the removal was required. It is hard, bitter and hard for a German court to have to say something. "
Even in the scientific constitutional discussion, the terms " rogue state " and " injustice system " - often used - particularly in relation to the GDR. On the "Third Reich " was the term " rogue state " first used in 1979 in a rather scientific publication.
The case law of German courts, both the " Third Reich " and the GDR are called unjust state. Another example from the case is Myanmar, which was characterized in a judgment of the Administrative Court of Karlsruhe in 2008 "given the decades-long dictatorship of the military junta " as unjust state.
Use in the discussion of the GDR
Historical and political discussion
The term " rogue state " plays in particular in the historical- political discussion about the evaluation of the German Democratic Republic until 1989 /90 role. German President Roman Herzog as declared on 26 March 1996 before the Commission of Inquiry overcoming the consequences of the SED dictatorship in the process of German unification on the GDR: " She was an unjust state. " Likewise, expressed in 2009, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel. The historian Ilko - Sascha Kowalczuk also argues that the GDR was an unjust state. This he justified by the lack of administrative jurisdiction and powers: The judiciary has never been independent of the political requirements of the state and party. The Criminal Code of the GDR had numerous political offenses known as Subversive baiting, slandering the state, rioting, etc., which led to a large number of political prisoners. This would in the majority just want to leave only the country or had been criminalized dissemination of undesirable literature such as George Orwell's 1984:
" Injustice was structural and political factors, law always remained arbitrary. "
Others, however, particularly politicians of the Left Party, resist the characterization of the GDR as a state of injustice, such as the politician Gesine Lötzsch on the grounds that the term " rogue state " was a propaganda battle cry, which was to brand. Lothar de Maizière, the last Prime Minister of the German Democratic Republic, refers to the word " criminal state " as unfortunate, since the term insinuating that everything that has happened there in the name of the law was wrong. The political scientist Gesine Schwan rejects the flat-rate application of the term " rogue state " in the GDR. Although the regime had been no rule of law, its one-sided description than unjust state but make work and life of all former GDR citizens under a moral suspicion.
Legal discourse
Even among lawyers is debatable to what extent the GDR could be described as unjust state. Horst Sendler considers that the regime had been " a criminal state in the core ," because the laws were " only set pieces ', and the ' be pushed aside when necessary " could, if they are " the governance [ ... ] or other persons authorized to decision-making bodies " did not fit; the GDR had " dramatically - casually " told " whistled for justice ." In contrast, says Ingo Müller, nor that the criminal state itself exists as a state, once for all acquired the title of " rule of law " had, so that the individual took place wrong acts should be assessed in each case for itself. Volkmar Schöneburg advocates to analyze the legal norms in the Nazi state as well as in the GDR and not exactly easy to replace with the category " criminal state ".
The Federal Constitutional Court had towards the GDR always " followed a cautious and ultimately nothing präkludierende decision strategy: It has refused, the other German Republic as, the criminal state through and through, to consider ' [ ... ]. "
The GDR referred to himself in June 1990 by constitutional principles of law as " liberal, democratic, federal, social and ecologically oriented rule of law. "