German legal citation

As in most countries, Germany has a standard way of cit- be cited simply as "§ 175 II StGB” or even "§ 175 II” de-
ing its legal codes and case law; an essentially identical pending on the amount of available context. In Austria,
system of citation is also used in Austria. the Absätze are usually cited as “Abs” (without a dot), e.g.
There is, however, no authoritative citation style similar "§ 1295 Abs 2 ABGB". Numbered lists are cited with a
capital “Z” (standing for Zahl i.e. number), e.g. "§ 73
in importance to the Bluebook (in the United States) or
OSCOLA (in the United Kingdom). Legal journals use Abs 1 Z 4 BWG”. By contrast, in Germany, the abbre-
viation “Nr.” (standing for Nummer i.e. number) is used
self-made “house” citation styles, and the most influen-
tial style guide probably are the Author’s Instructions of instead.
the Neue Juristische Wochenschrift, arguably the most In non-legal contexts, for example in text formatting, the
important legal journal in Germany.[1] word Absatz would normally be equivalent to English
“paragraph”, but in legal usage an Absatz is a subdivision
of a Paragraph; we must either use the German word or
1 Citing portions of the German le- translate it as “sub-paragraph”. Margaret Marks suggests
(for British English) translating Paragraph as “Section”
gal code and Absatz as “subsection”. For American English, she
suggests leaving § intact except at the start of a sentence
As an example, the famous or notorious Paragraph 175, (where she would use “Section”), and translating Absatz
which formerly made male homosexuality a crime in as “subsection”.
Germany, would most properly be cited in an English- The Basic Law (constitution) of Germany is divided into
language text as "§ 175 StGB (Germany)". "§" sim- Artikel or articles, not sections. To cite the Basic Law a
ply denotes “paragraph” (and can be pluralized as "§§"). notation like "Artikel 1 GG" or “Art. 1 GG”, where GG
“StGB” stands for Strafgesetzbuch (penal code); other stands for Grundgesetz, basic law, is used.
similar usages would be “BGB” (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch,
the Civil Code) and “ZPO” (Zivilprozessordnung, the
Civil Procedure Code). Paragraphs with the same num-
ber from these different codes are completely unrelated; 2 Citing German case law
thus, § 175 ZPO has nothing to do with § 175 StGB.
Finally, unless the context is clear, "(Germany)" may be The Entscheidungen des Bundesgerichtshofs in Straf-
sachen (cited as “BGHSt”) covers criminal case law
added to distinguish this from the similar system of ci-
tation for Austria; again, paragraphs with the same num- in the present-day Federal Republic of Germany
that was decided by the Federal Court of Justice
ber in German and Austrian legal codes are unrelated,
except in laws that were introduced in Austria with the (Bundesgerichtshof). Case law from German unifica-
tion (1871) until 1945, decided by the Empire Court
Anschluss in 1938, such as the AktG (Stock Corporations
Act), which, of course, has frequently been amended in of Justice (Reichsgericht), would be in the Entscheidun-
gen des Reichsgerichts in Strafsachen (cited as “RGSt”).
different ways in both countries since then. A method
that is sometimes employed in Austrian legal writing to Similarly, decisions in private law can be found in
distinguish between Austrian and German law is to add the Entscheidungen des Bundesgerichtshofs in Zivilsachen
a lower case “d” for Germany (German: Deutschland) (“BGHZ”) and Entscheidungen des Reichsgerichts in Zivil-
and an "ö" for Austria (German: Österreich) before the sachen (“RGZ”). E.g. BGHZ 65, 182 would refer to a
abbreviation of the respective code, e.g. “dAktG” and case published in BGHZ, volume 65, beginning at page
"öAktG” referring to the German and Austrian stock cor- 182.
porations acts. Alternatively, cases may be cited to law reviews where
Within such a paragraph, there may be numerous Absätze they have been rendered, e.g. BGH, NJW 1982, 473. Ide-
(singular Absatz). The Absätze are cited as “Abs.”. Thus, ally, the date of the court decision and the docket number
a particular portion of Paragraph 175 might be cited as should be given before the citation, but whether this is re-
"§ 175 Abs. 2 StGB (Germany)". Texts addressed at a quired usually depends on the publisher.
purely legal audience commonly make use of an informal It is not general practice to cite case names, since the
shorthand, abbreviating Absätze for example as Roman names of parties are anonymized. However, in some ar-
numerals. Thus, in such texts, this same provision might eas of law (e.g. corporate law), where the name of a party

1
2 5 REFERENCES

(usually the company involved in the case) is generally

known, some cases have gained notoriety under that name
(e.g. the Holzmüller decision). Other cases, especially in
criminal law, have become known under names empha-
sising the peculiar story that made them notorious, such
as the Katzenkönigfall or the Gubener Verfolgungsfall. In
such cases, it may be helpful for readers to render that
name, even though it is entirely optional and such case
names are not official.

3 Austrian case law

Similar rules apply to Austrian case law. Decisions by
the Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof) can be cited
to the official collections (SZ for private law and SSt for
criminal law) or to law reviews. In the case of the official
collections, other than in Germany, the cite normally does
not refer to the page number, but to the number of the
case, e.g. SZ 82/123 (referring to case number 123 in
volume 82 of the official collection of private law cases).

4 Notes
[1] Neue Juristische Wochenschrift,"Hinweise für Autoren”,
NJW-Redaktion, Postfach 11 02 41, 60037 Frankfurt am
Main, Stand: 1.11.2006.

5 References
• For Austrian legal citation see Gerhard Friedl
& Herbert Loebenstein, Abkürzungs- und Zitier-
regeln der österreichischen Rechtssprache und euro-
parechtlicher Rechtsquellen (AZR), 5th ed., Manz,
Vienna 2001.
 3

6 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1 Text
• German legal citation Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_legal_citation?oldid=591191841 Contributors: Jmabel, Sekicho,
Guusbosman, Saintswithin, Kwamikagami, Bobo192, Dapete, Martg76, StanZegel, Wikidea, Doric Loon, Kh80, Hazzl, Gaius Cornelius,
Evilboy, Ospalh, R'n'B, Niemeyerstein en, Cuaxdon, House1630, LilHelpa, FrescoBot and Anonymous: 7

6.2 Images

6.3 Content license

• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0