https://legal.excellentwiki.com/germany/evidence/ Recent content in evidence on ExcellentWiki - Legal Encyclopedia Hugo en-US Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://legal.excellentwiki.com/germany/evidence/german-evidence-law/ Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://legal.excellentwiki.com/germany/evidence/german-evidence-law/ <h2 id="overview">Overview</h2> <p>German evidence law (<em>Beweisrecht</em>) operates within the civil law tradition and is governed primarily by the Code of Criminal Procedure (<em>Strafprozessordnung</em>, StPO) for criminal matters and the Code of Civil Procedure (<em>Zivilprozessordnung</em>, ZPO) for civil matters. The German approach to evidence is fundamentally different from the common law tradition. There are no comprehensive exclusionary rules comparable to the hearsay rule or the character evidence prohibition in Anglo-American law. Instead, German law relies on the principle of free evaluation of evidence (<em>freie Beweiswürdigung</em>) and the principle of judicial instruction (<em>Amtsermittlungsgrundsatz</em> or <em>Untersuchungsgrundsatz</em>), particularly in criminal proceedings where the court bears the responsibility for ascertaining the truth <em>ex officio</em>.</p>