Tenth blog anniversary/Zehnter Geburtstag des Blogs

When I started this blog in April 2003, I didn’t expect it to run for ten years.

Unfortunately, I am in a phase of little blogging, although there is plenty to write about, if I weren’t otherwise occupied.

So what is going on in the law in Germany at the moment?

In case anyone has missed this, a court in Bavaria has been making headlines.

The trial in question, before the Munich Higher Regional court (Oberlandesgericht), is called the NSU-Prozess. NSU is Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund (National Socialist Underground), after the right-wing terrorist organization to which the surviving defendant, Beate Zschäpe, belongs. The charge relates to ten racist murders, of which five were committed in Bavaria (memorial to the three who died in Nuremberg) and eight were of Turks. The press originally called them Döner murders and attributed them to inter-Turkish gang warfare. I believe the trial is expected to take a couple of years. It was due to start tomorrow, on April 17.

The court allocated seats to journalists on a first-come first-served basis, and no Turkish journalists were included. The subsequent outcry (some German journalists even offered their places to Turkish journalists, but the court refused this, and it refused to relay the proceedings into a second room) culminated in an application to the Federal Constitutional Court, which found that the seat allocation should be changed (press release in English, in German). Thereupon the court yesterday changed the starting date of the trial from 17 April to 6 May.

Here’s a New York Times article for more.

The change of date is unfortunate for the victims’ families, who had made arrangements to stay in Munich. It might not have been necessary if the court had been prepared to take notice of objections, instead of claiming the moral high ground.

5 thoughts on “Tenth blog anniversary/Zehnter Geburtstag des Blogs

  1. Zehn Jahre lang abwechslungsreich, interessant, lehrreich, spannend, lustig, inspiriert, unterhaltsam – alle Achtung. Gl

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