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Accused family judge before the Erfurt Regional Court: "With high criminal energy, a child protection procedure was set up"
Photo: Martin Schutt / dpa
The decision has been made in the trial against a family judge at the Weimar District Court. Accordingly, the lawyer was found guilty of perversion of justice and sentenced to two years' imprisonment on probation.
In April 2021, the judge had decreed in a decision he drafted that children at two schools in Weimar did not have to wear Corona masks in class. However, this obligation had been laid down in the hygiene concept of the Thuringian Ministry of Education in force at the time.
The defendant had made a verdict "that he had intended from the outset," said the presiding judge in the verdict. The proceedings at the Weimar District Court, in which he made his decision, he had actively generated.
»A signal against existing government measures«
The public prosecutor's office had requested three years in prison, the defense lawyers an acquittal. A public prosecutor said in her plea at the Erfurt Regional Court that the family judge had secretly and "with a high level of criminal energy" set up a child protection procedure to take action against the mask requirement. He wanted to send a signal against the state measures that existed at the time."
The judge's decision was overturned in subsequent instances. The lawyer had no jurisdiction for the question submitted to him, the Thuringian Higher Regional Court decided. The judicial review of state orders on corona protection measures is "solely the responsibility of the administrative courts". The Federal Court of Justice has since confirmed this view.
ala/dpa