prosecutor

noun · Staatsanwalt

Staatsanwalt for the public prosecutor, die Staatsanwaltschaft for the office, and the role is not the adversary English drafting assumes, § 160 Abs. 2 StPO binds it to gather exonerating evidence too, and the Legalitätsprinzip of § 152 Abs. 2 StPO removes the discretion whether to charge at all. Ankläger alone is a role, not the institution.

Which translation, when

Staatsanwaltthe public prosecutor, member of die Staatsanwaltschaft, § 141 GVG, bound to objectivity, § 160 Abs. 2 StPO, and to the Legalitätsprinzip, § 152 Abs. 2 StPO. The default for prosecutor in a German file.

Anklägerthe accuser as a role, fine in öffentlicher Ankläger, but naming a function, not the institution the Staatsanwaltschaft is.

Why

German prosecution rests on two principles English adversarial drafting does not expect. The Staatsanwaltschaft is not a party hunting a conviction, § 160 Abs. 2 StPO obliges it to investigate the exonerating circumstances as much as the incriminating, the objectivity duty, and § 152 Abs. 2 StPO adds the Legalitätsprinzip, where sufficient factual grounds exist it must in principle charge, the discretion of the English system replaced by a rule, softened only by the enumerated Opportunität exceptions, §§ 153 ff. StPO. Institutionally it sits within the executive and is bound by instruction, weisungsgebunden, § 146 GVG, a feature that periodically draws European scrutiny but remains the law. The vocabulary around it is false-friend territory, the Generalstaatsanwalt heads a regional office and is no US Attorney General, that office is der Generalbundesanwalt only at the very top for offences against the state, and the investigating role is shared, the police investigate under the Staatsanwaltschaft as Herrin des Ermittlungsverfahrens. Der Anwalt alone, finally, is the lawyer in private practice, der Rechtsanwalt, so dropping the Staats- turns the prosecutor into defence counsel with one missing syllable.

Typical mistakes

Der Anwalt for the prosecutor demotes the state to private practice, the office is der Staatsanwalt, die Staatsanwaltschaft, and the missing syllable swaps sides in the courtroom.
The prosecutor is not a pure adversary, § 160 Abs. 2 StPO binds it to collect exonerating evidence and § 152 Abs. 2 StPO to charge where grounds exist, so translating it as the accusing party imports an adversarial stance German law tempers.
Generalstaatsanwalt is not the Attorney General, it heads a regional Generalstaatsanwaltschaft, the federal apex for state-protection offences is der Generalbundesanwalt, and conflating them mis-scales the office.

What matters

Cross-border criminal instructions mis-cast the actor first: the prosecutor is die Staatsanwaltschaft, § 160 Abs. 2 StPO, obliged to weigh exonerating evidence, not a conviction-seeking adversary, and bound to charge where grounds exist, § 152 Abs. 2 StPO. The letter treating der Staatsanwalt as the claimant’s ally has misread an office built on objectivity, and der Anwalt in that slot briefs the defence by accident.

Authority

§ 160 Abs. 2 StPO
§ 152 Abs. 2 StPO
§§ 153 ff. StPO
§ 141 GVG
§ 146 GVG

What the machine misses

Prosecutor arrives as Anwalt or Ankläger in machine output, one dropping the state and landing in private practice, the other naming a role where German means an institution. The deeper miss is doctrinal, the Staatsanwaltschaft must gather exonerating evidence and must charge where grounds exist, so the adversarial colouring the English word carries is exactly what the German office is built to temper.

See what the machine does with this clause →

Examples

the public prosecutor	der Staatsanwalt
the prosecution service	die Staatsanwaltschaft
to bring a public prosecution	die öffentliche Klage erheben
the investigating prosecutor	die ermittelnde Staatsanwaltschaft

More notes on these sections

charge Belastung