these and other measures it has been
brought about that throughout the Empire justice is administered in
tribunals whose officials are appointed by the local governments and
which render decisions in their name, but whose organization, powers,
and rules of procedure are regulated minutely by federal law. The
hierarchy of tribunals provided for in the Law of Judicial
Organization comprises courts of four grades. At the bottom are the
Amtsgerichte, of which there are approximately two thousand in the
Empire. These are courts of first instance, consisting ordinarily of
but a single judge. In civil cases their jurisdiction extends to the
sum of three hundred marks; in criminal, to matters involving a fine
of not more than six hundred marks or imprisonment of not over three
months. In criminal cases the judge sits with two Schoeffen (sheriffs)
selected by lot from the jury lists. Besides litigious business the
Amtsgerichte have charge of the registration of land titles, the
drawing up of wills, guardianship, and other local interests.

Next above the Amtsgerichte are the 173 district courts, or
Landgerichte, each composed of a president and a variable number of
associate judges. Each Landgericht is divided into a civil and a
criminal chamber. There may, indeed, be other chambers, as for example
a Kammer fuer Handelssachen, or chamber for commercial cases. The
president presides over a full bench; a director over each chamber.
The Landgericht exercises a revisory jurisdiction over judgments of
the Amtsgerichte, and possesses a more extended original jurisdiction
in both civil and criminal matters. The criminal chamber, consisting
of five judges (of whom four are necessary to convict), is competent,
for example, to try cases of felony punishable with imprisonment for a
term not exceeding five years. For the trial of many sorts of criminal
cases there are special Schwurgerichte, or jury courts, which sit
under the presidency of three judges of the Landgerichte. A jury
consists of twelve members, of whom eight are necessary to convict.

Still above the Landgerichte are the Oberlandesgerichte, of which
there are twenty-eight in the Empire, each consisting of seven judges.
The Oberlandesgerichte are courts of appellate jurisdiction largely.
Each is divided into a civil and a criminal senate. There is a (p. 244)
president of the full court and a similar official for each senate.[354]

[Footnote 354: In Bav