I think I’ll have to stop reporting on new German blawgs – they are shooting out of the ground like weeds. Via jurabilis (April 5th) I found Christian Säfken’s weblog (he also has a joint blog called Glücklich Altern, together with a medical doctor, but how old are they, I want to know?), but then I see in Handakte WebLAWg ‘nichts Neues’ – already mentioned on April 3rd (Ätsch! as the Germans say).

At the same time, Rainer Langenhan asks how many German legal weblogs there are. Ralf Zosel replies: 17 at a guess, referring to the list at JuraWiki.

That list directs my attention to m.e.p.Histo-bLog (its web address is inappropriately blog.rechteinfach.de), immateriblog and Die Berliner Sicht der Dinge. However, it includes JurText, which I don’t think is a real blog. And it omits Law-Blog.

LATER NOTE: Rainer Langenhan points to two others:
muepe.de and
ragoertz.blogg.de

At least in England and Wales, more categories of people can now sit on juries.
Joshua Rozenberg, the legal editor of the Daily Telegraph, writes:

bq. Under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, all registered electors aged between 18 and 70, except people with a mental illness and those convicted of a criminal offence, must now serve on a jury if summoned.

This means that lawyers (including judges), clergy (including bishops), doctors and peers will be able to sit.

Joshua Rozenberg used to be the BBC’s legal correspondent and wrote a critical assessment of the English legal system, In Search of Justice, in 1994, which I found extremely useful for putting some flesh onto the system when I was teaching English law for translators. He has written a more recent book (March 11th 2004!) called Privacy and the Press, which I don’t know.

(Via UK Criminal Justice Weblog)

Manchmal lesen nette deutsch(sprachig)e Anwälte diesen Blog, und ich wäre sehr froh, wenn einer eine Meinung zu diesem kleinen Satz geben könnte. (Aber vielleicht habe ich es jetzt richtig verstanden, siehe letzte Bemerkung ).

Das OLG Celle, in 9 U 67/02 (nicht online verfügbar) beendet das Urteil wie folgt (es geht mir nur um den allerletzten Satz):

IX. Nebenentscheidungen
(Entscheidung über Kosten folgt aus…)
(Entscheidung über vorläufige Vollstreckbarkeit folgt aus…)
Grundsätzliche Bedeutung haben die Anwendung des AuslInvestmG aus stille Beteiligungen, die Anwendung des § 826 BGB auf das “Beteiligungsverhalten” der in den Vertrieb eingeschalteten personen und die Anwendung des KWG auf Geschäftsaktivitäten, wie sie der Beklagte zu 2 entfaltet hat, sowie die Beurteilung des Zurechnungszusammenhangs zwischen einem etwaigen Verstoß gegen die Erlaubnispflicht nach dem KWG und dem geltend gemachten Substanzschaden.

Und jetzt kommts – letzter Satz des Absatzes und des Urteils:

Insoweit kommt auch eine Entscheidung zur Rechtsfortbildung in Betracht.

“Rechtsfortbildung” ist klar. Aber was ist mit dem Rest – bedeutet es eventuell “Daher könnte dieses Urteil vielleicht auch als eine Entscheidung angesehen werden, die das Recht fortbildet”?

Die Sprache dieses Urteils hatte es in sich. Gott sei dank habe ich eit gewonnen, indem ich nach den fehlender Wörtern nachfrage (siehe früheren Eintrag).

SPÄTER HINZUGEFÜGT: jetzt habe ich es vielleicht doch selber gelöst – über Google (“Entscheidung zur Rechtsfortbildung”) stelle ich fest, dass die Neufassung von §522 ZPO diese Wörter enthält – wenn keine Entscheidung zur Rechtsfortbildung in Betracht kommt und andere Bedingungen zutreffen, wird die Berufung abgelehnt. Ich bin also der Meinung, dieser Satz gehört zu “Die Revision wird zugelassen”. Es bedeutet also, “Der BGH könnte eine Entscheidung zur Rechtsfortbildung treffen”, nehme ich an.

Query about the meaning of a German sentence.

Artikel über Weblogs in Großbritannien. Mit Interviews und links.

The Observer has an article on weblogs in Britain (via greenfairydotcom).

Of course, The Observer and The Guardian are connected, and the Guardian has its own weblog.

The main source of blogging experience was Lynn Gomm, whose weblog is Bacon, Cheese and Oatcakes (reminds me of the UseNet group alt.2eggs.sausage.beans.tomatoes.2toast.largetea.cheerslove). I like Lynn’s description of meeting other bloggers:

bq. When we did meet, she told me there was a reason she had had only one personal encounter with her many blogging friends, a visitor from the United States. ‘The meeting was OK, but the real person isn’t of course the same person who writes. I think I’m more comfortable with the person I put onto the computer – I don’t have to put on make-up and make a social effort. I tend to blog with people who blog like I do, but their lifestyle or educational background might mean that if we met we’d probably have nothing to say.’

One thing I find strange is that the very famous Belle de Jour UK blog has been in the news as ‘she surely isn’t who she says she is – is she a journalist – is she a man’ at the same time as the same questions were being raised of the German Belle de Jour blog.

Beschluss vom Bundesverfassungsgericht vom 2. April 2004, zu Ebenbürtigkeitsklausel und Eheschließungsfreiheit (RSS-Newsfeed hier).

It’s interesting what cases sometimes come up in court. The press releases of the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) now have a newsfeed. This press release (German) is dated April 2nd and relates to a decision of March 22nd. It’s a Beschluss, which means a judgment that was passed without oral argument.

Kaiser Wilhelm II died in 1941. His eldest son, Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, died in 1951. We’ll call him the deceased (Erblasser) or W. He could be called testator, since he had a will, but the case relates not to the will but to an earlier testamentary disposition (letztwillige Verfügung), a contract of inheritance (Erbvertrag). German law still has these: for example, if a parent wants a particular child to take over the business, a contract can be made while the parent is still alive, indeed often long before the parent is likely to die, guaranteeing funds and to this extent preempting some of the rights of the other heirs.

In 1938, W entered into a contract of inheritance with his second-eldest son, Prinz Louis Ferdinand (just L.F. in the press release!), who died in 1994. This contract provided that the eldest son would continue to be the heir, but only if his marriage was suitable (Ebenbürtigkeitsklausel: equal ranking clause).

The complainant is not named, but he must be Prince Friedrich Wilhelm (FW). He was LF’s eldest son and he applied for a certificate of inheritance (Erbschein – the equivalent to taking out probate) stating that he was the heir to the title. He regarded the equal ranking clause as contrary to public policy (sittenwidrig). It restricted his right to marry to a few aristocratic Protestant women, who themselves had to have been born to marriages that complied with the constitution of the house of Brandenburg-Prussia (Hausverfassung). Continue reading →