Monika Harms | |
---|---|
Attorney General of Germany | |
In office 1 June 2006 –30 September 2011 | |
Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
Preceded by | Kay Nehm |
Succeeded by | Harald Range |
Personal details | |
Born | Berlin,Germany | 29 September 1946
Political party | Christian Democratic Union |
Alma mater | University of Hamburg University of Heidelberg |
Monika Harms (born 29 September 1946 in Berlin) is a German lawyer. She has served as Attorney General of Germany from 2006-2011.
Harms was born in Berlin on September 29,1946. After completing the Abitur in Frankfurt am Main in February 1966,she started studying law at the University of Heidelberg and later at the University of Hamburg,where she did her first state exam in April 1971,followed by the second one in March 1974. Between 1971 and 1974 she also had her judicial clerkship ("Referendariat") in Hamburg.
After graduating,Harms worked as a prosecutor in Hamburg until she became a judge at the regional court ("Landgericht") of Hamburg. Between 1983 and 1987 she was a judge at the Fiscal Court Hamburg ( Finanzgericht ). Afterwards she was appointed as a judge at the Federal Court of Justice in 1987,where she later became a presiding judge as well. She became the Attorney General of Germany in June 2006,an office which she held until reaching the age limit in 2011.
During her time in office,she played a crucial role in Germany's fight against terrorism. In April 2007,Harms announced that the government would not pursue charges against Donald Rumsfeld and 11 other U.S. officials in connection with the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal,stating the accusations did not apply,in part because there was insufficient evidence that the acts occurred on German soil,and because the accused did not live in Germany. [1] In September 2007,following a six-month investigation,her office stopped a major terrorist attack against American and German targets by arresting three Islamic militants and seizing a large amount of potentially explosive chemicals and military-grade detonators. [2]
In another much-discussed move in 2008,Harms overturned Marinus van der Lubbe's conviction of setting the 1933 Reichstag fire,after a lawyer in Berlin alerted her to the fact that he had yet to be exonerated under a law passed in 1998. The law allowed pardons for people convicted of crimes under the Nazis,based on the concept that Nazi law "went against the basic ideas of justice". [3]
Harms,who is considered an expert in law regarding fiscal offences also works as a lecturer at the Ministry of Finance's Bundesfinanzakademie since 1990,and she held various other lectureships. In January 2008 she became an honorary professor at the University of Halle-Wittenberg.
Harms is married and a member of the Christian Democratic Union.
Karl Roland Freisler was a German jurist,judge and politician who served as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice from 1934 to 1942 and as President of the People's Court from 1942 to 1945. As a prominent ideologist of Nazism,he influenced as a jurist the Nazification of Germany's legal system. He attended the 1942 Wannsee Conference,the event which set the Holocaust in motion. He was appointed President of the People's Court in 1942,overseeing the prosecution of political crimes as a judge,and became known for his aggressive personality,his humiliation of defendants,and frequent use of the death penalty in sentencing.
Marinus van der Lubbe was a Dutch communist who was tried,convicted,and executed by the government of Nazi Germany for setting fire to the Reichstag building—the national parliament of Germany—on 27 February 1933. During his trial,the prosecution argued that van der Lubbe had acted on behalf of a wider communist conspiracy,while left-wing anti-Nazis argued that the fire was a false flag attack arranged by the Nazis themselves. Most historians agree that van der Lubbe acted alone,although this is occasionally disputed. Nearly 75 years after the event,the German government granted van der Lubbe a posthumous pardon.
The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building,home of the German parliament in Berlin,on Monday,27 February 1933,precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Marinus van der Lubbe,a Dutch council communist,was the alleged culprit;the Nazis attributed the fire to a group of Communist agitators,used it as a pretext to claim that Communists were plotting against the German government,and induced President Paul von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties,and pursue a "ruthless confrontation" with the Communists. This made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.
Herta Däubler-Gmelin is a German lawyer,academic and politician of the Social Democratic Party. She served as Federal Minister of Justice from 1998 to 2002,and as a Member of the Bundestag from 1972 to 2009. She currently teaches as an honorary professor of political science at the Free University of Berlin,particularly on international relations and human rights,and was the Hemmerle Professor at RWTH Aachen University in 2011. She is married to the legal scholar Wolfgang Däubler.
JoséPadilla,also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir or Muhajir Abdullah,is a United States citizen who was convicted in a federal court of aiding terrorists.
The People's Court was a Sondergericht of Nazi Germany,set up outside the operations of the constitutional frame of law. Its headquarters were originally located in the former Prussian House of Lords in Berlin,later moved to the former Königliches Wilhelms-Gymnasium at Bellevuestrasse 15 in Potsdamer Platz.
Brigitte Zypries is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Between 2017 and 2018,she served as Minister for Economics and Energy in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel;she was the first woman to hold that office in German history.
Jutta Limbach was a German jurist and politician. She was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and served as President of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany from 1994 to 2002,the first woman in this office.
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party and a prominent advocate of human rights in Germany and Europe. Within the FDP,she is a leading figure of the social-liberal wing. She served as Federal Minister of Justice of Germany from 1992 to 1996 in the cabinet of Helmut Kohl and again in the second Merkel cabinet from 2009 to 2013. In 2013,the new German government announced Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger's candidacy for the office of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe.
The Verbotzeit refers to the fifteen-month period between
Herlind Gundelach,is a German politician of the German Christian Democratic Union.
Curt Ferdinand Rothenberger was a German lawyer,judge and Nazi Party legal theorist. He rose to become the State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Justice in Nazi Germany. He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Judges Trial at Nuremberg in 1947 and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment. Released in 1950,he resumed life in the legal profession until inquiries into his past arose publicly once again in early 1959,and he died by suicide shortly afterward.
Gerda Hasselfeldt is a German politician of the Christian Social Union (CSU) who served as deputy chairperson of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and chairwoman of the Bundestag group of CSU parliamentarians. Following her departure from active politics,she became President of the German Red Cross in 2018.
The National Socialist Underground,or NSU,was a German neo-Nazi militant organization active between 2001 and 2010,and uncovered in November 2011. Regarded as a terror cell,the NSU is mostly associated with Uwe Mundlos,Uwe Böhnhardt and Beate Zschäpe,who lived together under false identities. Between 100 and 150 further associates were identified who supported the core trio in their decade-long underground life and provided them with money,false identities and weapons. Unlike other terror groups,the NSU had not claimed responsibility for their actions. The group's existence was discovered only after the deaths of Böhnhardt and Mundlos,and the subsequent arrest of Zschäpe.
Manfred Roeder was a military judge in Nazi Germany. Serving on the highest wartime court,he led the investigation and examinations and later the prosecution of the German Resistance group,the Red Orchestra. He shared responsibility for the dozens of death sentences handed down by the Reich court martial to Red Orchestra members. After Germany's defeat in World War II,there were attempts by survivors,family and the U.S. Army to investigate the prosecutions of Red Orchestra members and others,but Roeder was never convicted of any malfeasance or crime since the Allies wanted information from him about the Russians to aid them in the nascent Cold War.
Heinz Neumann was a German politician from the Communist Party (KPD) and a journalist. He was a member of the Communist International,editor in chief of the party newspaper Die Rote Fahne and a member of the Reichstag. He was one of the many victims to Stalin's Great Purge.
Gabriel Bach was a German-born Israeli jurist,who was a judge of the Supreme Court of Israel and was the deputy prosecutor in the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann.
Katarina Barley is a German politician and lawyer who has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2019,serving as one of its Vice-Presidents. She served as Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection in the fourth Cabinet of Angela Merkel. Prior to that,she had served as Federal Minister of Family Affairs,Senior Citizens,Women and Youth and since 28 September 2017 also as the acting Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs,both until 14 March 2018.
María JoséSegarra Crespo,is a Spanish jurist,Attorney General between 2018 and 2020. She began her career in the prosecutor's office in 1987. From 2004 to 2018 she was in charge of the Prosecutor's Office of Province of Seville.
Barbara Havliza is a German judge and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as State Minister of Justice in the government of Minister President Stephan Weil of Lower Saxony since November 2017.