An Amtsgericht (Local Court) in Germany is an official court. [1] These courts form the lowest level of the so-called 'ordinary jurisdiction' of the German judiciary (German Ordentliche Gerichtsbarkeit), which is responsible for most criminal and civil judicial matters. [2] The German Amtsgericht may be compared to the magistrates' courts in England and Wales, although it has much broader sentencing powers. Its name derives from the Amt as a denomination for an administrative and court district in many of the territories of the Holy Roman Empire.
The main areas of an Amtsgericht's jurisdiction are:
In criminal cases, the court may be composed of either one professional judge, where the expected sentence is not more than two years imprisonment, or 1-2 professional judges and 2 lay judges where the expected sentence is more than two years imprisonment. A single judge is still able to impose up to four years imprisonment.
There are 640 Amtsgerichte in Germany, [3] whose jurisdictional area typically comprises a small number of towns or municipalities. The next higher level of ordinary jurisdiction is called the Landgericht . The term Amtsgericht may also refer to the building where the proceedings take place.