Herta Däubler-Gmelin

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Herta Däubler-Gmelin
Däubler-Gmelin (2008)
Federal Minister of Justice
In office
27 October 1998 – 22 October 2002
ChancellorGerhard Schröder
Preceded byEdzard Schmidt-Jortzig
Succeeded byBrigitte Zypries
Personal details
Born (1943-08-12) 12 August 1943 (age 80)
Slovak Republic
NationalityGerman
Political partySocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)
Alma materUniversity of Tübingen
Websitedaeubler-gmelin.de

Herta Däubler-Gmelin (German: [ˈhɛʁta ˈdɔʏblɐˈɡmeːliːn]; born 12 August 1943) is a German lawyer, academic and politician of the Social Democratic Party. She served as Federal Minister of Justice from 1998 to 2002, and as a Member of the Bundestag from 1972 to 2009. She currently teaches as an honorary professor of political science at the Free University of Berlin, particularly on international relations and human rights, and was the Hemmerle Professor at RWTH Aachen University in 2011. She is married to the legal scholar Wolfgang Däubler.

History

She was born in

Freie Universität Berlin
, which made her an honorary professor in 1995.

Political career

Däubler-Gmelin joined the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1965 and became a member of the Bundestag in 1972, subsequently representing Tübingen from 1998 to 2002. She held several party offices in the 1980s and 1990s, serving as deputy party chairman from 1988-1997. From 1994–98, she was chairwoman of the working group on legal affairs and legal adviser to the SPD parliamentary group.

In 1993, the SPD nominated Däubler-Gmelin to fill the vacancy of vice-president of the

Federal Constitutional Court, but after conservative parliamentary groups blocked the nomination for nine months as being "too political" she abandoned this career step in favor of Jutta Limbach. Ahead of the 1994 elections, SPD chairman Rudolf Scharping included her in his shadow cabinet for the party’s campaign to unseat incumbent Helmut Kohl as Chancellor.[1]
During the campaign, Däubler-Gmelin served as shadow minister of justice.

Federal Minister of Justice, 1998–2002

From 1998 to 2002, Däubler-Gmelin served as Justice Minister in

German Civil Code, the most invasive since its inception in 1900.[citation needed
]

In 1999, both Däubler-Gmelin and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer appealed for clemency for the LaGrand brothers, two German citizens sentenced to death in Arizona. According to the German government, the LaGrands had been denied their rights as German citizens because prosecutors did not inform the German consulate of the brothers' arrest in 1982 until a decade later. However, both were put to death in a cloud of cyanide gas.[2]

Amid the Enron scandal in 2002, Däubler-Gmelin launched a voluntary 12-page corporate governance code that calls on company audit committees to be aware of other business links between the company and its auditors, including consulting work.[3]

On 18 September 2002, four days before

legal system as "lousy".[4]

This was the version published by Schwäbisches Tagblatt (a paper widely regarded as liberal to leftist and respected for its journalistic quality), which later stated that Däubler-Gmelin herself had confirmed the wording of the report,[5][6] as well as several present at the meeting.[5][6] Another account of the meeting states that the Hitler comparison originated from a participant and that Däubler-Gmelin had merely agreed that Hitler had used such tactics, too.[7]

Immediately after the article had been published, Däubler-Gmelin strongly denied it, claiming to have been misquoted.

anti-americanism in both Germany and abroad, including members of the U.S. government such as Ari Fleischer and Condoleezza Rice.[9] On September 20, Däubler-Gmelin called U.S. Ambassador Dan Coats to state that the reports had no basis and Schröder wrote an apology letter to Bush, stating "there is no place at my cabinet table for anyone who makes a connection between the American president and such a criminal."[9] He did not force her to resign immediately, claiming to trust her denial of the quotation, but she was dropped from his new cabinet when it was formed a few weeks after his narrow re-election.[citation needed
]

Later work

From 2002 to 2005 Däubler-Gmelin served as chairwoman of the Bundestag's Committee on Consumer Protection and Agriculture, and from 2005 she chaired the Committee for Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid.[citation needed]

Life after politics

Since 2004, Däubler-Gmelin has been practicing as Of counsel with the Berlin office of law firm Schwegler.[10][11]

In 2009, Germany’s national railway company Deutsche Bahn commissioned Däubler-Gmelin and former Interior Minister Gerhart Baum with investigating allegations according to which the company had, in violation of privacy laws and corporate guidelines repeatedly and on a large scale compared personal data of its employees with those of suppliers, in a bid to uncover possible corruption.[12]

Between 2012 and 2013, Däubler-Gmelin served as member of the European Commission’s High Level Group on Media Freedom and Pluralism, an advisory panel set up by European Commissioner Neelie Kroes and chaired by Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga.[13]

She has voiced her support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reform in the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.[14]

From 2012 to 2014, Däubler-Gmelin represented political group “Mehr Demokratie e.V.” (More Democracy) in its unsuccessful constitutional complaint before the Federal Constitutional Court against Germany’s participation in the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the European Fiscal Compact.[15]

In 2019, Däubler-Gmelin was appointed to a task force investigating allegations of fraud and embezzlement at Workers' Welfare Association (AWO), a charity and one of Germany’s largest employers.[16]

Other activities

Däubler-Gmelin is a member of several charitable and

non-profit organizations
, including the following:

Personal life

Däubler-Gmelin is married to

labor law
. They were married in 1969 and have two children.

References

  1. New York Times
    .
  2. New York Times
    .
  3. Wall Street Journal
    .
  4. ^ a b c d e Däubler-Gmelin: Bush will ablenken. Schwäbisches Tagblatt, 19 September 2002. "Online copy". Archived from the original on November 14, 2004. Retrieved 2010-02-20.
  5. ^ a b c "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger - Aktuelle Nachrichten aus Köln und der ganzen Welt".
  6. ^ a b "Bush Gets Apology For Hitler Remark". CBS News.
  7. Rote Fahne no.39/2002, 26 September 2002. "Online copy". Archived from the original
    on December 4, 2004. Retrieved 2010-02-20.
  8. ^ "Home – BerlinOnline Stadtportal GMBH & Co. KG".
  9. ^ a b "Schroeder apologises for Hitler row". BBC News. 21 September 2002.
  10. ^ Professor Dr. Herta Däubler-Gmelin Archived 2017-05-27 at the Wayback Machine Schwegler Rechtsanwälte, Berlin.
  11. ^ Däubler-Gmelin arbeitet für Künstler-Kanzlei Die Welt, August 8, 2004.
  12. Spiegel Online
    .
  13. ^ James Fontanella-Khan and Robert Budden (January 21, 2013), Brussels tables tighter EU media laws Financial Times.
  14. ^ "Overview". Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly. Retrieved 2017-10-09.
  15. ^ Karin Matussek and Rainer Buergin (March 18, 2014), Germany Role in Europe Stability Mechanism Upheld Bloomberg News.
  16. ^ Helmut Schwan and Matthias Trautsch (December 14, 2019), Awo-Affäre : Däubler-Gmelin soll aufklären Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
  17. ^ Advisory Board European Law Students' Association (ELSA) – Germany Chapter .
  18. ^ Members Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES).
  19. ^ Board of Trustees German-Polish Lawyers’ Association (DPJV).
  20. ^ Board of Trustees Deutsche Hospiz- und PalliativStiftung.
  21. ^ Board of Trustees Schneller Foundation.
  22. ^ Advisory Board Transparency International.

External links

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