Stefanie HubigJustice · Rights · Responsibility
§ 05 — Judicial Career · Ingolstadt, 1996–2000
The Bench 1996 · Regional Court Ingolstadt
The Prosecution 1998 · Public Prosecutor’s Office Ingolstadt

Two sides of the same proceedings

Documented

Judge for criminal and civil matters

In 1996, a year after her Second State Examination, Stefanie Hubig began work as a judge for criminal and civil matters at the Regional Court (Landgericht) in Ingolstadt. The Federal Ministry of Justice’s biography specifies the Regional Court; some secondary sources mention the local District Court instead.

What a Regional Court does

Germany’s ordinary courts are organised in four tiers: local courts (Amtsgerichte), regional courts (Landgerichte), higher regional courts and the Federal Court of Justice. Regional courts hear civil disputes above the local-court threshold — €5,000 at the time, raised to €10,000 from 2026 — and serious criminal cases at first instance, as well as appeals from local courts. Judges sit in chambers, often of three professional judges, and in criminal matters together with lay judges.

Judicial independence in practice

Under Article 97 of the Basic Law, judges are independent and subject only to the law. Young judges in Germany typically begin as judges on probation, rotating through different assignments before a lifetime appointment. Work in both criminal and civil chambers gives a broad grounding in the two great branches of ordinary jurisdiction.

Documented

Public prosecutor

From 1998, Hubig served as a public prosecutor (Staatsanwältin) at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Ingolstadt. In Bavaria, as elsewhere, judges and prosecutors belong to the same career track and can move between the two functions.

The prosecutor’s legal position

The German prosecution service is often described as the “most objective authority in the world”. It leads criminal investigations, decides whether to bring charges and represents the prosecution in court. By law it must investigate not only incriminating but also exculpatory circumstances (§ 160(2) Code of Criminal Procedure), and it is bound by the principle of mandatory prosecution: where there is sufficient suspicion of an offence, it must act.

Daily work

Prosecutors direct the police in investigations, apply to judges for search warrants and other intrusive measures, draft indictments and penalty orders, and plead in court. The function sits at the point where investigative effectiveness and the protection of suspects’ rights meet.

Analysis

Why practice informs policy

Analysis / context

Many of the questions that occupy a federal justice minister are procedural: how long trials take, how evidence is gathered, how courts and prosecutors are staffed, how victims and witnesses are treated. Practical experience in a courtroom and a prosecution office provides first-hand knowledge of these mechanics — of case files, deadlines, the preparation of hearings and the limits of investigative powers.

Several of Hubig’s priorities as minister concern exactly this terrain: an expert commission to accelerate criminal trials, new preservation orders for digital evidence, electronic files and federal funding for 2,000 judicial posts. It would go beyond the evidence to claim that her years in Ingolstadt “explain” these choices; ministers act within coalition agreements, budgets and political negotiation. What can be said is that her career gave her direct experience of the institutions she now legislates for.

From practitioner to official

In 2000 Hubig left the Bavarian judiciary for the Federal Ministry of Justice. Secondment or transfer of judges and prosecutors into justice ministries is a common path in Germany: ministries draw on practitioners to draft laws that courts will apply. Her move followed that pattern. See Federal Justice Career.

4

tiers of ordinary courts in Germany

Art. 97

Basic Law: judges are independent and subject only to the law

§ 160

Code of Criminal Procedure: prosecutors must also establish exculpatory facts

Sources

  1. Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, biography of the Minister (Regional Court Ingolstadt, from 1996; prosecutor from 1998) — bmjv.de
  2. Federal Government, curriculum vitae of Dr. Stefanie Hubig — bundesregierung.de
  3. Basic Law (Grundgesetz), Article 97; Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO), §§ 152, 160 — gesetze-im-internet.de
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