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Lower Saxony Justice Minister Wahlmann: Remitting penalties is overwhelming the judiciary
Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / picture alliance / dpa
In a letter to Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (both SPD), Lower Saxony's Justice Minister Kathrin Wahlmann called for the planned amnesty regulation for convicted dealers or users of cannabis to be canceled or postponed.
This emerges from a letter that is available to the “Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung”.
The amnesty regulation will pose significant problems for courts and public prosecutors in Lower Saxony, writes Wahlmann.
She is in favor of allowing the retroactive penalty remission to come into force on October 1st instead of April 1st.
Wahlmann considers the planned date of April 1st to be too short a time for the judiciary to implement the regulation, because in Lower Saxony alone “more than 16,000 cases are expected to be evaluated.”
The minister also warns about claims for compensation and the possible criminal liability of public officials.
As soon as the law comes into force, public prosecutors would have to stop enforcing sentences or courts would have to decide on corresponding applications.
The possession of up to 25 grams of cannabis or the cultivation of up to three plants should be exempt from punishment in the future - and also retroactively.
There is no transitional regulation planned.
It is still unclear how the red-green Lower Saxony state government will behave when the law is voted on in the Bundesrat next week.
lhi/dpa