The Federal Constitutional Court published a ruling on Tuesday that provisionally brought an almost ten-year legal dispute to an end.

It dealt with basic questions of judicial independence - on which the court did not, however, decide.

For the second time, the judges did not accept a complaint from the judge concerned, Thomas Schulte-Kellinghaus, for a decision.

According to the third chamber of the Second Senate, the latter did not explain the violation of his judicial independence in sufficient detail.

The constitutional complaint is therefore inadmissible.

Marlene Grunert

Editor in politics.

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Schulte-Kellinghaus is a civil judge at the Freiburg External Senate of the Higher Regional Court (OLG) Karlsruhe.

Before the constitutional court, he protested against the actions of his former court president.

In 2011 she criticized him for not doing enough cases.

In the years 2008 to 2010, his execution performance corresponded to only about 68 percent of the performance of other OLG judges.

In 2011 he dealt with fewer proceedings than a half-day judge.

Approval from well-known lawyers

At the beginning of 2012, the then court president Schulte-Kellinghaus then formally requested to achieve an average workload. For years he has fallen short of the average workload "quite considerably and beyond all generous tolerance ranges". Schulte-Kellinghaus, who has been joined by a number of well-known lawyers and who is considered to be particularly careful, sees his judicial independence violated by this request. So far, however, the courts have ruled that the then president of the court was allowed to admonish him to “orderly, undelayed settlement”.

According to the Basic Law, judges are independent, not bound by instructions and only subject to the law.

It is a basic principle of the German judiciary, but in practice so-called completion rates play a decisive role.

Those who want to be promoted also have to provide good figures.

This has a very specific effect on the application of the law, because it is about how much time a judge spends studying files and taking evidence.

Also gives the right to expeditious proceedings

The Federal Constitutional Court therefore makes it clear in its decision: The “formulation of standards for the (quantitative) completion service” also has to fully respect the judge's independence. It is then violated if such standards amount to "a direct or indirect instruction on how the judge should proceed or decide in the future". The constitutional complaint, however, said that this could not be inferred "with sufficient clarity". It must therefore remain open whether the request and admonition met the requirements of judicial independence.

The principle of judicial independence is offset by the right to expeditious proceedings.

It is an expression of the requirement of effective legal protection.

The European Court of Human Rights has reprimanded Germany several times for "excessively long" proceedings.

After all, behind the claim are citizens waiting for their rights.

How a “speedy procedure” can be defined is, however, controversial.

The requirement of effective legal protection is also not only aimed at individual judges, but also at the state, e.g. the state legislature, to make sufficient resources available.