## Facts

- After German reunification, a federal statute authorized review and possible withdrawal of prior admissions of lawyers based on GDR-era conduct violating “principles of humanity or the rule of law.”
- Three former GDR lawyers, later admitted in reunified Germany, had their licenses revoked by state justice ministries due to their activity as unofficial collaborators (IMs) of the GDR State Security Service (Stasi).
- Complainant 1 (Thuringia) reported to the Stasi about fellow lawyers, clients, and clients’ plans, including planned emigration.
- Complainant 2 (Thuringia) provided Stasi reports on clients and others; authorities viewed his cooperation as more intensive and more harmful to third parties’ rights.
- Complainant 3 (Saxony) signed a cooperation commitment and provided information obtained through his legal practice.
- Bar courts and the Federal Court of Justice affirmed the withdrawals, treating the IM activity as a serious breach justifying disbarment.
- The three lawyers filed constitutional complaints, primarily alleging violations of the constitutional right to occupational freedom.

## Issues

1. Whether the reunification-era statute authorizing withdrawal of a lawyer’s admission for serious GDR-era violations of “principles of humanity or the rule of law” is compatible with constitutional occupational freedom and rule-of-law requirements.
2. Whether disbarment based on Stasi collaboration requires an individualized proportionality assessment rather than an automatic rule based on IM status.
3. Whether the lower courts’ and ministries’ decisions in each complainant’s case satisfied constitutional limits, including adequate consideration of severity, culpability, mitigating circumstances, and present professional suitability.

## Decision

- The court held the statute constitutional.
- Complainant 1: the withdrawal decisions violated occupational freedom because the assessment was insufficiently individualized; the decisions were annulled and the matter remanded.
- Complainant 2: the constitutional complaint was rejected; the revocation was upheld as proportionate given the seriousness of his collaboration.
- Complainant 3: the complaint succeeded in part; the Federal Court of Justice decision was annulled for inadequate proportionality review and remanded, while the challenge to the ministry decision was otherwise rejected.

## Legal Principles

- Disbarment is a severe interference with occupational freedom and requires heightened justification and careful judicial review.
- Protecting the integrity of the administration of justice and public trust in the legal profession is a legitimate and weighty governmental interest that can justify exclusions based on serious past misconduct under an authoritarian regime.
- Stasi collaboration may qualify as a violation of “principles of humanity or the rule of law,” but IM status alone is not automatically disqualifying.
- Application of the statute requires a case-specific assessment of: the intensity and duration of cooperation, the content and consequences of reports, the individual’s culpability (including coercion or constraints), and whether the conduct reveals a defect incompatible with the professional role.
- Proportionality demands weighing the gravity of the past misconduct against the present impact of disbarment and the need to maintain confidence in a rule-of-law legal system.
- When a statute uses open-textured standards affecting fundamental rights, decisionmakers must concretize and apply them with sufficient determinacy through reasoned, individualized findings.

## Conclusion

The court sustained a post-reunification legal framework permitting disbarment for serious Stasi collaboration, but required strict proportionality and individualized evaluation; it upheld one disbarment while annulling or remanding the other two for insufficiently tailored review.


East German Disbarment Case, 93 BVerfGE 213 (Fed. Const. Ct. Ger. 1995)