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German "Law on Legal Advice" of 13. December 1935

The Law on Legal Advice of 13. December 1935 is a result of the Nuremberg race laws. Implementing regulations ensured that Jewish lawyers and judges could no longer be active because of their ''race''. In order to prevent that they give free advice, lawyers got a monopoly on legal advice. Therefore Jews where fired from the lawyers chamber and were not allowed to assist suffering comrades before court. The same happened to lawyers critical to the Nazi regime.

After the second world war the allies declared Hitlers dictatorial Nazi government illegal, but forgot to remove the Nazi laws he gave. The implementing regulations of the Law on Legal Advice were waived 1945, but the Nazi law remained. The law was changed since, but the monopoly of the lawyers still exists. The German constitutional court did not find the law unconstitutional.

Unfortunately there is - to my knowledge - no literature in English on the subject and nearly no translations (apart from translation of:  “Der lange Atem eines Nazi-Gesetzes“) on the subject. Therefore I used Babelfish to translate some articles. Unfortunately the translations turned out to be awful and nearly unreadable and I had to correct them. Is there somebody who is interested to update the translating? Do you know about any literature in English? Please do not hesitate to contact me: walter.keim@gmail.com.

Although the translations are perhaps difficult to understand, I hope this collection can give you an idea:

PS:  In German only: The Law of Legal Advice is challenged by a constitutional complaint of 6. April 2000. But it was 24. July 2004 only partly successful: Simplified the result is that judges are now allowed to give free legal advice. The Bockmann case is now a complaint at the European Court of Human rights, filed 13. November 2002. (No. 40901/02. A translation to French is available from Dr. Kramer).

Copy to: German Ministry of Justice (27. October 2003), Parliamentary Parties Federal Parliament (27. October 2003), OHCHR-UNOG G/SO 215/51 GERM ES.

Appendix:

Visitor No. since 22. October 2003

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