Portrait | It's more complicated

Ralf Rusch Photo: Sebastian Haak Ralf Rusch started working as a lay judge in a youth chamber at the Erfurt Regional Court in 2024. "I'm always really shocked at myself, especially at the beginning, because I've obviously lived in a different world in which many things are not even thought possible." Rusch says sentences like this several times when he talks about the experiences he has had so far in the position that he accepted after leaving the world that had been familiar to him the year before. Sometimes Rusch's sentences also sound like this: "What I learned very quickly in the lay judge's office is that although you can live together in a society, there are still life situations from - and this is not meant to be derogatory - certain classes that you never imagine. You sit in court and think: 'My God...'”

For many years, Rusch's world consisted of representing the interests of Thuringia's municipalities. Day in and day out, as managing director of the Thuringia Association of Municipalities and Cities, he was busy telling various state governments that they needed to do more for the communities and cities in this Free State. Since the fall of the Wall, he has been employed by the Association of Municipalities and Cities, including 18 years in the top job. Above all, Rusch had repeatedly called for more money - very reliable in many years: 200 million euros - to be transferred to the municipalities when he was still working as an interest representative. The people he usually spoke to were selected accordingly: prime ministers, state secretaries, members of parliament, other association officials, mayors.

Rusch has now reflected on this self-critically. “I actually only ever had to deal with decision-makers,” he says. Now, as a lay judge, he regularly comes into contact with people who didn't or barely existed in his world at the time. “It’s a completely different level, it’s something human, I’ll say, I like that.”

According to his own admission, Rusch never had any firm intention of being elected as a lay judge; to an honorary judge. In the German legal system, the men and women who hold such positions are an important pillar of the judiciary. As soon as there are serious allegations of crimes, they, alongside professional judges, decide whether the defendants will be found guilty in court and what punishments they will be sentenced to. They are part of the justice system's claim to make judgments "in the name of the people."

The influence of lay judges on the proceedings cannot be overestimated. In the large criminal chambers of the regional courts, for example, there are two or three professional judges and two lay judges. “The court decides on the question of guilt with a majority of two-thirds of the votes,” says the Thuringian Ministry of Justice about the way the verdict is reached there. "The votes of full-time and volunteer judges are evaluated equally." Means: Where lay judges work in the court, the professional judges cannot overrule or override them, even if they agree on a matter, but the lay judges have a different opinion.

As he prepared to leave his executive role and retire, Rusch's first idea was not to spend a lot of time in courthouses. At first he planned to take intensive care of his 15- and 17-year-old children, says Rusch. As is not unusual for young people going through puberty, the two had only “little interest” in being closely looked after by Dad.

Because new lay judges were being sought in Thuringia during his transition into retirement, he began to be interested in such an office, especially in the area of ​​a youth chamber. “As a father of two teenagers, you realize that young people are faced with difficult tasks,” says Rusch. So he applied in 2023 and was elected. Just like around 1,800 other men and women who have currently been appointed as chief and assistant lay judges for Thuringia. The current electoral period for lay judges runs since January 1, 2024 and runs until the end of 2028.

Rusch now knows that his own fatherhood and his own experiences with the children of relatives, friends and acquaintances are only a small part of the diverse realities of life in which children and young people grow up. Much of what he has now heard in court from these other realities of life has shocked him. For example, Rusch tells of a year-long custody battle over a child that the mother lost. She then told the man who had fought for custody that he was not the child's (biological) father. The entire first phase of the child's life was shaped by this legal dispute. “And then a statement like this comes along – now imagine the child’s situation,” says Rusch.

He also tells of a confessed and insightful drug addict defendant. At this point, the man understood that he had to urgently seek help if he wanted to get his life under control. “The man actually did that and went to drug counseling,” says Rusch. "They then said to him: We don't have any staff, we can't help you right now, send an email." The man then went home. "You can imagine what he did there..." Whenever Rusch says sentences like that and he leaves the end hanging in the air, you can feel that he is stunned by the deficits in the world that he gets to know as a lay judge. This is especially true when he takes part in court proceedings involving sexual violence against children. "That's something I won't allow in court either."

Rusch's view of how criminals should be dealt with in Germany has also changed. From the time before 2024, he still knows exactly how quickly the public will demand harsh and even harsher punishments for criminals. He himself also thought something similar for most of his life, says Rusch. »For me, a criminal was a criminal. They said he had to get his punishment and be done with it.”

After around fifteen court proceedings in which he has taken part as a lay judge so far, including the trial regarding the attack on a refugee shelter in Gehren, Rusch sees the matter in a much more differentiated way. He sees how complicated it is to impose punishments, especially in the youth sector, how important it is, especially for young people, to give more space to the idea of ​​education than to the idea of ​​punishment. But he also notices again and again that such considerations reach system limits. “I’m a realist,” says Rusch. That's why he knows that the capacities in social welfare and youth welfare or in the probation system are nowhere near as large as to be able to care for everyone the way they actually need it.

When new lay judges are sought for the courts in Thuringia in 2028, Rusch wants to apply for such an office again.

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