Supreme Court of East Germany


The Supreme Court of the German Democratic Republic was the highest judicial organ of the GDR. It was set up in 1949 and was housed on Scharnhorststraße 6 in Berlin. The building now houses the district court in Berlin, Germany 2 Instance and the District Court Berlin-Mitte. In the early days, 14 judges made up the court. It was disestablished in 1990.

Responsibilities

Among the responsibilities of the court included
  • The conduct of criminal proceedings in the first body, in which the Supreme Public Prosecutor of the Republic because of the paramount importance of prosecuting cases before the Supreme Court raised
  • Cassation in civil and criminal matters
  • vocation against decisions of acquittal for annulment actions of Office for invention and patent system in patent invalidity matters.
Later other tasks were added, mainly due to the process of simplification which is attributable to the pace of DDR-Justiz.
Neither separate constitutional court nor special administrative, social and financial court systems existed in the GDR, with constitutional review vested in the People's Chamber as a legislative rather than judicial function.

Notable figures