Penelty Order

If a court has sent you a letter titled Strafbefehl, you should not ignore it for too long.

A Strafbefehl is a penalty order that prosecutors and courts can use to end criminal procedures fast and cost-effectively.

It is a way for them to hand out sentences without even having a court trial in cases of suspected low or medium level crime.

In practice this means that a prosecutor can request that the court hands out a Strafbefehl. For this the prosecutor has to tell the court what the circumstances of the case are in his opinion and what he thinks the appropriate sentence should be.

The court then decides whether or not to grant this request on the basis of the investigation files.

If the court does grant the request, the Strafbefehl is then sent via mail to the accused person.

And here‘s the reason why you shouldn‘t ignore it:  If you don‘t lodge an appeal against the Strafbefehl within two weeks of receiving it, you are automatically convicted without further ordinary legal recourse.

So this Strafbefehl then becomes the legal equivalent of a court verdict.

This means that you now have a criminal record and that if the Strafbefehl contains a financial penalty, you will have to pay up.

 What you should do after receiving a Strafbefehl is to immediately contact a lawyer, so that you can get competent advice and make an informed decision on whether or not you want your lawyer to lodge an appeal within the two week deadline.