Anette W. has been in custody in the Hildesheim women’s prison for more than two months. Your request for mercywhich she had submitted to Lower Saxony’s Justice Minister Kathrin Wahlmann (SPD) before Christmas, was rejected on January 24th. A spokesman for the ministry told taz. There are no reasons that “could justify a grant of clemency” according to the state’s clemency regulations.
The case made waves shortly before Christmas. Unlike in prominent case blockin which there is currently a public criminal trial in Hamburg about the responsibility of those involved in the kidnapping of children, no criminal trial with the collection of evidence took place here.
Anette W., who is accused of not releasing her daughter to her father, was tried in absentia by the family court last year sentenced to 150 days in prisonwhich she will now serve until the end of April.
In 2023, W. moved with her daughter from Hanover to Frankfurt and went into hiding there. The girl was there taught in homeschooling and was socially integrated in a sports club. The mother had a job and an apartment in Frankfurt. At the beginning of November she was arrested and her daughter was taken into care by the youth welfare office.
Penalty order and administrative detention
A parallel criminal case for the abduction of minors was quickly concluded by the district court with a penalty order and a suspended sentence. But the Lower Saxony judiciary issued an administrative arrest order to continue detaining the woman.
Anette W’s lawyer Christian Laue submitted the request for clemency on December 18th. He warns that his client is at risk of losing her civil existence and even becoming homeless as a result of her five-month imprisonment.
Administrative detention has a “punitive nature” and does not meet constitutional requirements. “Deprivation of liberty is the most serious intervention the state has at its disposal,” says Laue, who also teaches law at the University of Heidelberg.
Minister sees no evidence of mercy
According to Laue, there have been procedural rules in criminal law for 150 years, such as the taking of evidence, to protect the constitutional rights of defendants. For the only introduced in 2009 Proper detention in family law However, such rules were missing.
But the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice took its time. First of all, it became clear that the woman was not – like 56 others – benefiting from “Christmas grace”. The ministry then explained that it would have to wait for statements from the courts involved. After these were submitted on January 6th, it took another 18 days until the decision was made.
The ministry now sees “no evidence” that would exceptionally justify intervention by the executive in the form of a pardon. The woman is indeed serving a “punitive” sentence because her daughter no longer lives with her and the purpose of forcing her to be handed over to her father no longer exists. But she is still “unable or unwilling to acknowledge her wrongdoing,” writes the spokesman.
Anette W. “consciously and repeatedly” withheld her daughter from her father over a period of several years, despite a court order to release her. She accepted a risk to the girl’s development through “consciously chosen isolation” and a “life underground” under the constant “danger of discovery”.
Anette W’s lawyer warns that his client is at risk of losing her civil existence and even becoming homeless as a result of her five-month imprisonment.
Since the woman had announced that she wanted to return to Frankfurt with the girl, but she did not yet have the necessary right of residence, a “further escalation was inevitable”.
The girl is currently in a home where she is not said to be very happy. Your situation was addressed on Monday in the Hanover Youth Welfare Committee, according to a statement Report of the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung emerges. “Why is the youth welfare office destroying a normal, middle-class life?” a great aunt was quoted there.
Regarding the rejection of the request for clemency, lawyer Laue says that it is strange that neither he nor Ms. W. were informed about the result and that they only found out about it through the press. “She is reduced to the object of the proceedings,” said Laue.
The case should be reviewed by the Constitutional Court
In terms of content, the current decision also adopted the claims of the Hanover District Court and the Celle Higher Regional Court, although he stated in his request for clemency that they were false. “The child by no means lived in isolation ‘consciously chosen’ by the mother, but rather experienced two extraordinarily happy years in which he was able to build up a large social environment,” says Laue.
Even now the daughter wants nothing more than to return there. The courts wanted to enforce their decisions “vindictively,” says the law professor. “We would have wished that at least the ministry, as an authority for mercy, would not follow these false claims, but would instead take the child’s will into account.”
The ministry spokesman also points out that if the woman considers the criminal nature of the administrative detention ordered under Section 89 of the Law on Proceedings in Family Matters to be unconstitutional, she would have had the opportunity to have this reviewed by the Federal Constitutional Court. Christian Laue says: “This lawsuit is on the way.”