Case Nos.2 BvR 2115/01, 2 BvR 2132/01, & 2 BvR 348/03.60 Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 499 (2007). At <http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de>.

Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court of Germany), September 19, 2006.

On September 19, 2006, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht) held in jointly decided Case Nos. 2 BvR 2115/01, 2 BvR 2132/01, & 2 BvR 348/03 that a failure to provide consular information to foreign nationals pursuant to Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) violates the guarantee of a fair trial as provided by the German Constitution (Grundgesetz). The result is in contrast to a recent U. S. Supreme Court decision in Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, a strikingly similar case.

The defendants, two nationals of Turkey and two of Serbia-Montenegro, were arrested in the course of different criminal investigations. They were informed of their rights as defendants as guaranteed by Germany's law of criminal procedure. The prosecuting authorities failed, however, to provide information on the defendants’ right to contact the consular staffs of their own countries in compliance with the VCCR. Three defendants were found guilty of murder and sentenced to lifetime imprisonment by the district court (Landgericht) of Braunschweig. The district court of Hamburg found the fourth defendant guilty of a robbery that resulted in the death of a victim, and sentenced him to eleven years’ imprisonment. Since the defendants refused to make statements, the criminal courts relied, inter alia, on the testimony of the police officers questioning the defendants after their various arrests. During the subsequent criminal proceedings, the defendants, presumably out of ignorance, made no attempt to invoke their consular rights, and the district courts seemed to be equally unaware of those rights.

The building of the Panama Canal has not been a one man’s work by any means. In its inception the preparation of the field, the elimination of impossible routes, and in the actual construction work, it has drawn forth some of the best brains of the country.

Noted engineers from civil life have had an important influence in determining the locality best suited for the purpose, and also in the plans adopted for building the canal; and the names of these men will go down in history as a part of its constructive force. But as the principal object of building the canal was to augment means for the national defence, it was eminently proper that the Army and Navy of the United States should have paramount influence in its establishment. For nearly forty years naval men have been engaged in surveying different parts of Central America and the Isthmus of Panama to find a practical route which should offer the fewest obstacles in cutting a channel between the two oceans. Finally, by a process of elimination, which brought the problem to a choice between the Nicaragua and Panama routes, the construction of a canal was actually begun by an American company on the Nicaragua line, and the work of construction put in the charge of naval officers.