{{more citations needed, date=May 2020 Staatsanwaltschaft München I - Dienstgebäude außen

The Staatsanwaltschaft, is the

public prosecutor's office Public prosecutor's offices are criminal justice bodies attached to the judiciary. They are separate from the courts in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, and are called the Staatsanwaltschaft. This kind of office als ...

in Germany. They are the offices of the

public prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal tria ...

s which are

criminal justice Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...

bodies attached to the

judiciary The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...

but separate from the courts. In Germany, the police have an obligation to investigate every single crime reported and subsequently send all investigations to the ''Staatsanwaltschaft''. The public prosecutor, the ''Staatsanwalt'' ( state attorney), reviews the findings of the police and decides whether to indict the accused or halt the proceedings. The prosecutor's office has (in theory) the duty to investigate and pursue any matter in its jurisdiction as soon as it learns that a criminal offence may have been committed (''Legalitätsprinzip''). However, there are some offences which require the victim to explicitly request prosecution (''Antragsdelikt''), other cases may be dropped due to "small guilt" or "non-importance" or the complainant may be told to prosecute on his own (common in defamation cases unless a

VIP A very important person or personage (VIP or V.I.P.) is a person who is accorded special privileges due to their high social status, influence or importance. The term was not common until sometime after World War 2 by RAF pilots. Examples inc ...

is involved). Prosecutors are authorized to undertake investigations themselves or can request the police to do so and the police are obliged to carry out such requests. Moreover, prosecutors can order witnesses and expert witnesses to testify before them and can even ask an investigating judge (the ''Ermittlungsrichter'') to interrogate witnesses or to examine the evidence. The investigating judge only reviews the legality of the interrogation or inspection and must comply with the prosecutor's request as long as it is legal. However, due to their superior amount of personnel, training and experience, the

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...

conduct the vast majority of criminal investigations on their own. Cases are normally only turned over to the prosecutor's office when they are considered to have been solved or all leads have gone cold. A prosecutor is usually only involved from the very beginning in homicide or serious

white-collar crime The term "white-collar crime" refers to financially motivated, nonviolent or non-directly violent crime committed by individuals, businesses and government professionals. It was first defined by the sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a ...

cases. Police also contact prosecutors at an early stage when significant publicity is expected or they need help gaining a judicial arrest or

search warrant A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to confiscate any evidence they find. In most countries, ...

etc., or when the ''Ermittlungsrichter'' is to interrogate a witness. In court, the approximately 5,200 public prosecutors in Germany are the prosecuting counsels. Unlike judges, public prosecutors are civil servants and therefore subject to the orders of their superiors. In investigations and in court, the prosecution is supposed to be "objective" and "neutral". However, instead of the legal principle of the maxim "

in dubio pro reo The principle of ''in dubio pro reo'' (Latin for " henin doubt, rule for the accused") means that a defendant may not be convicted by the court when doubts about their guilt remain. The rule of lenity is the doctrine that ambiguity should be re ...

" (Latin: "benefit of the doubt", see

presumption of innocence The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must presen ...

) which applies to judges, the maxim for the prosecution is in dubio pro duriore, that is presumption of guilt. The reason for this is that the courts would be stripped of their proper role if in case of a doubt there were not even a trial, and because proof may yet be found within the trial. Still, it is (or should be) common for the ''Staatsanwaltschaft'' to request the acquittal of the defendant if the evidence that came to light in the courtroom or before suggesting the defendant is innocent. Naturally the defence's opinion often differs from that of the prosecution in this matter. The next investigating criminal justice body above the Staatsanwaltschaft is, according to the authorities of the separation of powers (''Legislative, Exekutive and Judicative'') of the German

Grundgesetz The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland) is the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. The West German Constitution was approved in Bonn on 8 May 1949 and came in ...

, the ''Generalstaatsanwaltschaft''.

See also