Saxon public prosecutor's offices examine effects of cannabis legalization on old cases

Following the extensive legalization of cannabis, the public prosecutor's offices in Saxony are examining the possible effects of the law, which came into force at the beginning of April, on previously imposed sentences. As the Dresden Public Prosecutor General's Office announced on request, over 29,000 enforcement proceedings for offenses involving marijuana or hashish had been investigated by mid-May. These included 654 cases in which remission of sentence was required and 1006 cases in which the sentence was to be revised or reduced by the court. "The examinations have not yet been completed," said a spokesperson.

The reason for the examinations is the amnesty regulation for old cases contained in the law. It applies in particular to investigations that are still ongoing and sentences in which fines have not yet been paid or prison sentences have not yet been served. These proceedings must now be reviewed in order to clarify whether the sentences are fully or partially covered by the intended amnesty.

In the course of this, twelve prisoners were released in the Free State on April 1 - for example due to remission of sentence or because the time they had actually served was longer than the court-ordered sentence, as reported by a spokesperson for the Dresden Public Prosecutor General's Office. There are no current statistics on the number of releases or sentence reductions resulting from the law.