Violations of the law in the conduct of the visual inspection procedure pursuant to Section 110 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (§ 110 StPO) have only been the subject of legal discussion and practice for a comparatively short time.
On 15.04.2024, our law firm obtained a decision on this topic before the Hamburg District Court (decision of 15.04.2024 – Ref. 162 Gs 149/20).
The court established the unlawfulness of the evaluation of the objects of the sighting (after a sighting period of more than 3 years) in the form of the creation of evidence files and the preparation of evaluation reports.
The Hamburg District Court stated that the legislative intention of § 110 StPO had been completely misjudged by the investigating authorities. The sole purpose of this provision is to enable the investigating authorities to conduct an initial “rough review” in order to differentiate between evidence that is relevant to the proceedings and evidence that is irrelevant to the proceedings.
This decision is also interesting because the court expressly did not interpret the “consent” given by the client (a lawyer) with regard to the removal on the day of the search as consent to further evaluation without seizure.
