Law, Legal Services, and the Postcommunist Transition in Germany's New Bundesländer

Abstract

Introduction One of the most distinctive and deeply ingrained aspects of life in the Communist People's Democracies of Eastern Europe was the stifling hold exercised by the Communist Party and its numerous associated organisations over the whole apparatus of the state, and virtually all other aspects of society. The Party purported to provide, equitably and in the name of social justice, for a wide range of needs which, under democratic capitalism, are normally shared between the government, the church, the judiciary, and all manner of other private agencies. Indeed, one of the key features of the changes that culminated in the`collapse' of Communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a growing demand from within these societies that the state and the people be seen as separate and that there be explicit recognition of the role of civil society as distinct and separate from the stateöa concept that had been largely dormant in Europe since the early 19th century (Gellner, 1994). The popular internal movements that were such important catalysts for change in the former East Germany, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, were in large measure attempts by the people to assert themselves as independent forces alongside the paraphernalia of the Party-dominated government and state (Blacksell, 1997). The spontaneity