| |
a
simultaneously existing intellectual alliance in the sense of a conspiracy, but
that a connection of this power position, in full knowledge of its legal
nature, with a simultaneous assumption of a conspiracy would mean a
contradiction in itself. Here it becomes necessary to prove that the activity
of a judge at the Special Court or a Reich public prosecutor is limited to the
application of the law which is based on the official Reich legislation in the
field of criminal law. I shall demonstrate that this Reich legislation in all
its harshness has, in its purpose, neither lost nor limited its character of
purely criminal law and that, on this point, it has not been misinterpreted as
clearly proved by the literature on the subject and the jurisdiction by the
supreme judicial authorities and others.
Here must be proved a fact
evident in itself, namely that judges and prosecutors in the same position as
Rothaug were never and in no context expected to have objects alien to the
field of criminal law in carrying out their official duties.
Records of
sentences already submitted and others still to be submitted will prove that
this had in no way been intended.
This touches on the legal question,
whether official functions resting on the official Reich legislation which, up
to this very moment, is covered in international law by the principle of
nationality and sovereignty, functions which were carried out in public, may be
conceived as actions of persecution on racial, religious, or political grounds
and may be treated as being on the same level as actions which were carried out
secretly and without control, and which could be recognized as wrong already by
their cruelty and severity by every person concerned as offending against
justice and law.
Here, I wish to convince the Court that offenses of
the latter kind, if they ever did happen within the legal sphere could and
should only be known to the immediate participants but not to Persons who held
positions like the defendant Rothaug.
In the concrete reflection on the
relationship to the law of the Position of judges and likewise prosecutors, it
is of decisive importance to elucidate in public law that the German judge,
under any regime, had merely to examine whether a law had been announced in
accordance with rules and regulations whereas an examination from other points
of view was outside his jurisdiction. In this context it is further necessary
to elucidate the significance and import of the judge being subject to the law
and the meaning of a sentence in the sense of German public law especially in
relationship to the legislative and executive power In an authoritarian state,
thus to the governing power.
Here we cannot omit to clarify the basic
legal principles and corresponding regulations which determine this
relationship or to
155 |