A survey shows that the law on cannabis legalization will lead to more than 210,000 criminal files being reviewed nationwide. In the most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone, 60,000 cases (as of March 15, 2024) would have to be looked at again, according to an inquiry by the "Deutsche Richterzeitung" to the justice ministries of the federal states. According to the information, this would be 7,000 cases in Saxony.
Länder fear judicial overload
The background to this is the amnesty regulation for old cases provided for in the law. The federal states and the German Association of Judges (DRB), publisher of the "Richterzeitung", have criticized this. They fear that the judiciary will be overburdened. Federal Drug Commissioner Burkhard Blienert, on the other hand, called on the federal states to clear the way for the controversial legalization of cannabis.
"For the public prosecutor's offices, the amnesty plans mean that they will have to manually evaluate all criminal files relating to the Narcotics Act again to determine whether the facts in question would be unpunishable under the new legal situation," DRB Federal Managing Director Sven Rebehn told the German Press Agency. It would have to be determined whether the narcotics offense involved cannabis and what quantity was involved.
