Rule of law

The authorities emphasised that laws were issued in a transparent, accountable and democratic way and a great deal of attention was paid to impact assessments. As regards independence of the judiciary, one needed to distinguish between courts and judges on the one hand, and prosecutors on the other. In the case of courts and judges, independence was assured, but their structure was governed by the relevant ministry. In some federal states, the selection, nomination and promotion of judges was carried out exclusively by the relevant ministries. In Saxony and Bavaria, the participation of freely elected judges was very limited. On the contrary, prosecutors were civil servants at the Ministry of Justice. Some raised doubts about the resilience of the German judiciary system; remuneration was not sufficient and a number of judges would be going into retirement in the next decade. Lastly, judges were increasingly receiving threats. 

As a final point, participants agreed that corruption was not a major issue in Germany.