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Otto Bähr (2 June 1817 – 17 February 1895) was a German legal scholar and liberal parliamentarian.

He supported the view, not always well accepted by governments, that since the State was part of society, it must be judged in the same courts as individual citizens.

Life

Early years

Bähr was born in Fulda, then as now a small historic town slightly more than 100 km (65 miles) north-east of Frankfurt in a region of the former Holy Roman Empire, at the time still with a somewhat ambiguous constitutional status, known as the Electorate of Hesse. His father was an army doctor. He devoted his own student studies to Jurisprudence and Cameralism (Kameralwissenschaften) at Göttingen and Marburg.

Legal career

In 1848 Otto Bähr was a member of a commission established to codify the administration of civil justice in the Electorate of Hesse. In 1844 he had obtained a post as a junior Hugh Court judge (Obergerichts-Assessor), and in 1849 he became a more senior High Court judicial official (Obergerichts-Rath) in the Electorate's capital, Kassel. In terms of the serious political ructions that affected politics and constitutional law in the Electorate of Hesse at the time, Otto Bähr was an opponent of the arbitrary traditionalism represented by Ludwig Hassenpflug, as a result of which he was sent back to his home town, Fulda, in 1851. However, Hassenpflug fell from power during the early 1850s and in 1856 Bähr was permitted to return to Kassel. In 1857 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Marburg. He nevertheless rejected offers of academic posts from Marburg and from two other universities.

In 1863 or 1864 he was appointed a senior appeal court judge ("Oberappellationsgerichtsrat") based in Kassel. After the events of 1866, whereby the Electorate of Hesse lost its independence, in September 1867 Bähr was accepted as a high court judge in the Prussian justice service, headquartered in Berlin. Later, following unification, in 1879, he was appointed as a high court judge at the new state's High Court, which had its seat in Leipzig, but he resigned the post with nervous exhaustion in 1881.

Authorships

Bähr wrote a number of influential legal works. He was critical of various contemporary developments in Jurisprudence. Of particular importance is his 1864 publication "Der Rechtsstaat. Eine publicistische Skizze", which provides a basis for modern concepts of the rule of law.

Politics

In 1867 he became a member of the short-lived North German Reichstag, where he remained till the body was dissolved at the end of 1870. Following unification, he was listed as a member of the German Reichstag between 1871 and 1880. He also sat as a member of the Prussian House of Representatives between 1867 and 1879. In the parliaments he represented a Kassel electoral district, sitting as a member of the National Liberal party.

Publications

• Die Anerkennung als Verpflichtungsgrund (1855), 2nd edition Göttingen 1867, 3rd edition Leipzig 1894
• Der Rechtsstaat. Eine publicistische Skizze. Cassel & Göttingen, 1864.
• Die preußischen Gesetzentwürfe über die Rechte am Grundvermögen, Jena 1870.
• Das Gesetz über die Enteignung von Grundeigenthum vom 11. Juni 1874, Berlin 1875, 2nd edition 1878.
• Das Rechtsmittel zweiter Instanz im deutschen Civilproceß, Jena 1871.
• Das Tonsystem unserer Musik, Leipzig 1882.
• Urtheile des Reichsgerichts mit Besprechungen, München 1883.
• Eine deutsche Stadt vor 60 Jahren, Leipzig 1884, 2nd edition 1886.
• Die Proceß-Enquête des Prof. Dr. Wach, Kassel 1888.
• Gesammelte Aufsätze, Leipzig 1895.
• In Sachen der Gotthardbahngesellschaft gegen die Unternehmung des großen Tunnels, Gutachten Luzern 1884.
• In der Rechtssache der Baugesellschaft Flüelen-Göschenen in Zürich gegen die Direction der Gotthardbahn in Luzern, Gutachten, Luzern 1887.
• Herausgeber der Jahrbücher für die Dogmatik des heutigen römischen und deutschen Privatrechts, Bd. 12—25.

References

1. ^ Albert Teichmann (1903). "Bähr, Otto". Bähr, Otto B., Rechtsgelehrter und Parlamentarier, geboren am ... Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. Vol. 47. Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. pp. 747–748.
2. Marina Künnecke, University of Hull Law School (2007). "The development of judicial review of administrative action". Tradition and change in Administrative Law: An Anglo-German comparison. Springer-Verlag. p. 22. ISBN 978-3-540-48688-6.
3. ^ Albert Teichmann (1903). "Bähr Otto". Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München.
4. ^ "Baehr, Otto, Dr. jur. h.c." Hirth's Parlaments-Almanach, Ausg. 6. Franz Dunder, Berlin & Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. 20 October 1867. p. 19. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
5. ^ "Baehr, Otto, Dr. jur. h.c., Ober-Appellationsgerichts-Rath..." Hirth's Parlaments-Almanach, Ausg. 7. Franz Dunder, Berlin & Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. 6 May 1868. p. 117. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
6. "Baehr, Otto, Dr. jur. h.c., Ober-Appellationsgerichts-Rath in Berlin..." Deutscher Parlaments-Almanach, Ausg. 9. Franz Dunder, Berlin & Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. 9 May 1871. p. 155. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
7. Haunfelder, Bernd ; Pollmann, Klaus Erich (Ed.) (1989). Reichstag des Norddeutschen Bundes 1867-1870. Historische Photographien und biographisches Handbuch. Vol. 2. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf. pp. 60, 373. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
8. Specht, Fritz / Schwabe, Paul : Die Reichstagswahlen von 1867 bis 1903. Eine Statistik der Reichstagswahlen nebst den Programmen der Parteien und einem Verzeichnis der gewählten Abgeordneten. 2. Aufl. Berlin : Verlag Carl Heymann, 1904, p. 148
9. Mann, Bernhard (Ed.) : Biographisches Handbuch für das Preußische Abgeordnetenhaus. Mitarbeit von Martin Doerry, Cornelia Rauh und Thomas Kühne. Düsseldorf : Droste Verlag, 1988, p. 52 (Handbücher zur Geschichte des Parlamentarismus und der politischen Parteien : Vol. 3)

• 1817 births
• 1895 deaths
• People from Fulda
• People from the Electorate of Hesse
• German Protestants
• National Liberal Party (Germany) politicians
• Members of the Prussian House of Representatives
• Members of the 1st Reichstag of the German Empire
• Members of the 2nd Reichstag of the German Empire
• Members of the 3rd Reichstag of the German Empire
• Members of the 4th Reichstag of the German Empire
• 19th-century German judges