The Reader’s Forum

Editor, The Jewish Daily Bulletin:

In a recent issue, you published a cablegram from Austria, in which the Landesgericht was spoken of as the Land Court, implying it was merely a real estate court. That was a mistake. In a recent cablegram from some point in Germany, your correspondent spoke of the Obellandesgericht as the highest court in Germany, That was a mistake. As you will probably have occasion from time to time to refer to these courts, I thought it would be wise to clear up the situation.

Landesgericht, if translated literally (landes-land, and gericht–a court) is a misnomer, One who did not know, would have the right to believe that our Supreme Court is really the supreme court, that is, the highest court of this State, which its name implies, but it is not. To call it Supreme Court is a misnomer. It is a court of first instance–a trial court. The Court of Appeals in Albany is the highest court of this State.

The Landesgericht in Germany and in Austria are trial courts just the same as the Supreme Courts in this State. The appeals from the Landesgericht go to the Oberlandesgericht, which is an appeal court for a certain district.

Landesgericht we will say, for the sake of comparison, is our New York, Supreme Court. Oberlandesgericht we will say is our Appellate Division of the Supreme Court–the appeal court for a certain territory or district. Take Brooklyn–there you have the Supreme Court of kings County and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the second department, which hears appeals from kings County, Westchester County and all the Long Island Counties and all the Staten Island Counties.

The highest court of Germany is the Reichsgericht, just the same as the highest court in our nation is the United States Supreme Court. The Reichsgericht sits in Leipzig, although recently in the “fire” cases, it for a while temporarily sat in Berlin as a trial court.

As I understand it, strange as it may seem, there are different sets of lawyers in Germany for the Landesgericht, Oberlandesgericht, and the Reichsgericht. The lawyer who tries a case in the Landesgericht cannot argue the appeal in the Oberlandesgericht. Lawyers who have the right to practice in either of the other courts cannot argue cases in the Reichsgericht. But right now it is very painful to be forced to say that Jewish lawyers have a hard time practicing in any court in Germany, and I am very much afraid it is soon going to be the same in Austria.

Very truly yours.

HENRY WOLLMAN.

New York City.

(Landesgericht or Landgericht was erroneously translated into English as Land Court. It should really be called General Court of Justice or Provincial Court of Justice.)