Hundreds of defendants benefited from the partial legalization of cannabis last year. In at least 699 cases, a sentence that had already been imposed was remitted, according to the Ministry of Justice's response to a question from Left Party member of the state parliament Rico Gebhardt. In at least a further 1,017 cases, public prosecutors applied for a new sentence or a reduction. Details on the number of releases from prison as a result of shortened or remitted prison sentences are not recorded statistically.
The reason for the file check is the amnesty regulation for old cases contained in the new law. It applies in particular to preliminary proceedings 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 be reviewed in order to clarify whether the sentences are fully or partially covered by the intended amnesty.
All old proceedings reviewed
According to the ministry, "all pending enforcement proceedings were already reviewed for necessary changes as part of the preliminary review" when the law was introduced on April 1, 2024 - around 29,200 by mid-April 2024.200. Saxony's judiciary had thus succeeded in reviewing such proceedings extremely punctually and "largely before the Cannabis Act came into force", summarized Gebhardt.
Copyright 2025, dpa (www.dpa.de). All rights reserved
