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[t'Sade]

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/06/2313251
http://torrentfreak.com/privacy-prevails-german-isp-forced-to-delete-ip-logs/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Voss

A pretty interesting article about how people in Germany can request that their IP logs be deleted from their ISP. According to the Slashdot article, there is already a pseudo-form letter than can be used to request this being done. Of course, how this case went through the court was interesting, since it was related to someone feeling that Holger Voss (according to Wikipedia) was pro-9/11. That does open some pretty nasty can of worms and I'm glad to see that it ended up mostly good (don't know the whole story).

[KK]

I remember reading about the initial trial against the guy, which was - to put it mildly - a disgrace for the DA who brought it to court. But some DA's are over-zealous and there is little one can do against it, unfortunately.

((smart-ass mode ON))
Anyway, I want to point out a little error on the wikipedia site:
The BGH (Bundesgerichtshof - Federal Appeals Court) is the highest civil and criminal court in Germany. But its decisions do NOT become law. Of course, the lower courts will take the BGH decisions in consideration and - most of the time - will decide the same way for the sake of unified legal procedure. But in contrast to US and UK law, German law does not know binding precedence. So, any court may still decide differently - tho that is not likely.

I suppose the wiki-author confused the BGH with the BVerfG (Bundesverfassungsgericht - Federal Constiutional Court), whose judgments indeed automatically become law and bind all three state powers. Appealing to the BVerfG is only possible if the plaintiff claims a violation of civil rights, by the way.

((smart-ass mode OFF))

 

[t'Sade]

Cool, I didn't catch that. You should get a wikipedia account and correct them or at least put it on the talk page.

[KK]

I don't think it matters much anyway, just wanted to be my usual smart-ass. 

I don't think many people will ever have anything to do with either courts.
While I was still a student, I worked in a lawfirm and actually had once to file a complaint to the Constitutional Court. At law school the technique of filing a complain to the Consitutional Court is essential part of the legal training, but its everyday importance is practically nil. This complaint was the 2nd or 3rd of that lawfirm in about 50 yrs of its existence, so go figure.

Btw, it was turned down. In fact, about 98% of all complaints are turned down after a cursory examination as inadmissible. It's a lot of work get to any complaint up to a stage that there will be a hearing - only 2% get to that stage and of course that only means the judges seriously look at the matter, not that the complaint will be successful (only a fraction are).

But in case you're wondering, the Constitutional Court consists of 2 chambers with 8 judges each and they get well over a thousand complaints per year. The court only examines claims of civil rights violations that are either of some seriousness or general interest in that they could potentially affect a large number of people. Another reason for the strict handling is that technically any wrong court decision under our civil rights doctrine is potentially a civil rights violation (because the right for legal procedure and correct application of the law is also essentially a civil right). A strict handling is necessary to avoid the Constitutional Court becoming a "super appeals court" where any appeals decision from the Federal Appeals Court could be "reappealed".

I think lawyers who file a complaint that has absoluletely no basis can be fined for wasting the courts time.