In December 2013, as a reaction to the Gurlitt art find, the newly appointed Bavarian Minister of Justice announced that Bavaria would propose a change of the German Civil Code to address the application of the statute of limitation to looted art. And he delivered: The proposal was approved by the Bavarian State Government today. Bavaria’s initiative to amend the Civil Code – which is federal, not state law – will now be dealt with in the Upper Chamber (Bundesrat) of the German parliament. It is expected to be on the Bundesrat’s agenda on February 14, 2014. If it passes this hurdle, the proposal will be dealt with, and ideally approved by, the Lower Chamber (Bundestag). Here is a link to the proposed legislation – the Kulturgut-Rückgewähr-Gesetz, or Art Restitution Act. Watch this space for a more detailed post commenting on the proposal.
Tag: Cornelius Gurlitt
Art Law: A Procedural Proposal for the Gurlitt Art Find
Lorenz Kähler this week in Legal Tribune Online published a proposal on how to overcome the procedural stalemate around the Gurlitt art find: On behalf of the potential owners of the art works found with Gurlitt, the Augsburg court should appoint a curator (Pfleger) on the basis of Sec. 1913 German Civil Code (BGB). Read More
Art Law: Reform of Limitation Rules – It’s Deja Vue All Over Again
Baseball legend Yogi Berra is credited with having coined the phrase “It’s déjà vu all over again”. And nothing describes more accurately how I feel about the limitation reform debate triggered by the Gurlitt case. Read More
Art Law: Contact Details of the Gurlitt Art Find Task Force
As previoulsy reported, a task force was established to assist the Augsburg public prosecutor’s office (Staatsanwaltschaft) to research the provenance of the Gurlitt collection. Its contact details, however, are not that prominently advertised – at least I could only find them in a German language press release on lostart.de. Here they are: Read More