Palatine Higher Regional Court

The Palatine Higher Regional Court in Zweibrücken (Pfälzisches Oberlandesgericht Zweibrücken) is, alongside the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz, one of two Higher Regional Courts in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The Palatine Higher Regional Court is one of the oldest of its kind in Germany. It was established in 1816 when King Maximilian I of Bavaria – also the last Duke of Zweibrücken in personal union – ordered the relocation of the Bavarian court of appeal, which had been established in Kaiserslautern in July 1815.

The origins of the Palatine Court of Appeal are closely linked to the administrative reorganisation of the area west of the river Rhine following the fall of Napoleon. In 1815, after the end of French rulership, the royal Austrian and Bavarian regional administration had established a court of appeal in Kaiserslautern for this area of Germany. As a result of the Congress of Vienna, parts of the western shore of the Rhine – corresponding to today’s Palatinate and the Saar-Pfalz district of the state of Saarland – had been taken over by Bavaria. In 1816 the King of Bavaria, Maximilian I – also the last Duke of Zweibrücken, from 1795 to 1825 – ordered the relocation of the royal court of appeal from Kaiserslautern to Zweibrücken, to commence operations from 1 August onwards. The opening ceremony was held on 16 October 1816. The city to which the Bavarian king had felt connected since childhood was now the seat of the highest-ranking court in the Palatinate – probably to act as a balance to Speyer, where the government of the Rhineland was based.

The law practiced by the court of appeal did not change for some time after the end of the Napoleonic era. The major achievements of the French Revolution – separation of powers, legal equality of all citizens, public viewing and the principle of oral presentation during court proceedings, as well as jury involvement – endured. French law was held in high regard. These liberal achievements, including freedom of the press, were very important to the population. As a result, these modern laws were also maintained on the western shores of the Rhine under Bavarian rule. Only gradually, over a lengthy period of time, did French law become less significant - such as with the Reichsjustizgesetze coming into force on 1 October 1879, and the introduction of the German Civil Code on 1 January 1900. The German law which succeeded it was in many aspects influenced by the values of French law.

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