Trial of the Major War Criminals before International Military Tribunal ...

The Ordinance does not state either on whom the office of a
Judge in these "Standgerichte" may be conferred, whether the
Judges in the "Standgerichte" are to be professional or nonprofessional
Judges and whether sentences are to be passed by a
Bench or by a single Judge. The Ordinance merely says: "Stand-
gerichte" will be set up by the
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Rdch Protector. It is for him to choose the persons who are to
function as Judges. As his selection is in no way restricted, he may
choose professional Judges; but should he consider it more
expedient, he may nominate exclusively non-professionals. Whether
they have to function as single Judges or as a Bench is again left
entirely to the discretion of the Reich Protector.
According to the information we possess at the moment, the
Judges designated for these "Standgerichte" were only in excep-
tional cases - if ever - professional Judges. As a rule, knowledge
of the law was not the decisive factor in the selection. Political
reliability was the quality most sought after. That is why the
Judges were, we can say, without exception, members and mostly
executives of the NSDAP or of the various other National Socialist
Organisations, that is to say, men who - with a few exceptions ­
had not the slightest knowledge of law, or experience in conducting
criminal proceedings. According to our information the proceedings
under "~tandrecht" were regularly carried out by a Bench (not
always of the same size), composed of insufficiently qualified persons.
It is obvious that the activity of such a Bench hardly merits
the name of jurisdiction.
The legislator had obviously both anticipated and desired this
inadequacy of the "Standgerichte". What else can have been the
reason for not allowing the accused to reject a Judge? Why was
it that a Judge was denied the possibility to withdraw from a case
even if, for reasons of a general or special character, he felt
unfitted for the task? The aim of this inadequacy was obviously
to prevent discussions which would have constantly shown that
the Judges selected by the Reich Protector were incapable of
fulfilling their duties.
The Ordinance of September 27th, 1941 does. not grant the
accused the right to reject a Judge. It does not even give the Judge
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the possibility of declaring himself prejudiced and suggesting the
appointment of another Judge. In short, it opens the way for a
sentence to be passed by Judges who are not even -unprejudiced.