Judges call for change in penalties against child pornography

The German Association of Judges is calling on Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) to correct the stricter criminal provisions against child pornography as soon as possible. From the point of view of the judiciary, the changes are not practicable and a correction is urgently needed, said Richterbund Federal Managing Director Sven Rebehn of the editorial network Germany (Wednesday). "At the time, the changes were pushed through against the advice of all experts, whose concerns have now been fully confirmed. Since then, public prosecutors and courts have had to deal with a large number of cases that do not actually belong in the criminal courts."

Minimum prison sentence of one year for a good deed of enlightenment

For example, parents could face a minimum prison sentence of one year if they wanted to contribute to the education in good faith. This is the case, for example, when they come across cases of child pornography in their children's class chats, want to point it out to the school management and carelessly forward the files. "Due to the current criminal law, the supposedly good deed of enlightenment becomes a boomerang," Rebehn added.

Written penalty orders or discontinuation of proceedings against conditions are no longer possible even in such cases: "Thus, the excessive reform makes it more difficult to punish the offense and guilt in individual cases and ties up a lot of personnel in the criminal justice system, which would be urgently needed to prosecute a growing criminal scene even more intensively."

Minister Buschmann has also recognized the problem and announced a reform in the course of the year. "The Federal Minister of Justice should now take up the demands of the judicial practice and the state ministries of justice as quickly as possible and make a proposal to correct the failed criminal provisions before the summer break," said Rebehn before the conference of justice ministers, which starts on Thursday in Berlin.

Last week, the vice president of the German Bar Association, Sonka Mehner, also called for a correction of the law on the possession of child pornographic material. She referred to the serious abuse case of the Saarland priest Edmund Dillinger.

His nephew had found hundreds of child pornography photos in the estate of the deceased and reported himself. There had been ambiguities about how he could and had to deal with the material found in order to contribute to the investigation without making himself liable to prosecution.