The private prosecution offense

No, because the police are legally obliged to record your criminal complaint and bring it to the attention of the responsible public prosecutor's office. The public prosecutor will first check whether there is a public interest in prosecution. If this is not the case, they will discontinue the criminal proceedings and refer you to private prosecution.

In the case of criminal offenses

• trespass,
• insult,
• violation of the secrecy of correspondence,
• assault,
• threat,
• damage to property and
• in the case of an offense under Section 323 a of the Criminal Code, if the act committed while intoxicated is one of the above-mentioned offenses,

an attempt at conciliation with an arbitrator is provided for before the private action is brought. If an amicable agreement is reached between the suspect and you, the attempt at reconciliation is deemed successful and the proceedings are concluded. You will receive a certificate from the arbitrator confirming the attempt at conciliation.

Your local authority, police station or district court will inform you of the arbitration office responsible for you on request. You can also obtain this information online in German language:

www.bds-nrw.com or
www.streitschlichtung.nrw.de 
www.schiedsamt.de

The Ministry of Justice of North Rhine-Westphalia also has a leaflet entitled "What you should know about the arbitration office". You can find the leaflet at www.justiz.nrw.de, where there is also an online order form.

If the attempt at conciliation fails, you can file a complaint with the local court for the record of the court registry or submit an indictment there. The certificate from the arbitration office must be submitted with the complaint. In the case of private prosecution offenses for which no attempt at atonement is provided, you can file the action immediately.

Yes, you can directly seek conflict resolution with the involvement of the arbitration office. This can have advantages over involving the criminal prosecution authorities, for example in the case of criminally relevant neighborly or family conflicts with a view to a future prosperous coexistence. However, the prerequisite is that it is one of the above-mentioned criminal offenses. The arbitrators are not responsible for other criminal offenses.

The injured party may be prosecuted by way of private prosecution without prior recourse to the public prosecutor's office:

1. a trespass (Section 123 of the Criminal Code),
2. an insult (Sections 185 to 189 of the Criminal Code) if it is not directed against one of the political bodies named in Section 194(4) of the Criminal Code,
   2a. a violation of the highly personal sphere of life by means of image recordings (Section 201a (1) and (2) of the Criminal Code),
3. a violation of the secrecy of correspondence (Section 202 of the Criminal Code),
4. an assault (Sections 223 and 229 of the Criminal Code),
5. a stalking (Section 238 (1) of the Criminal Code) or a threat (Section 241 of the Criminal Code),
   5a. corruption or bribery in business dealings (Section 299 of the Criminal Code),
6. damage to property (Section 303 of the Criminal Code),
   6a. an offense under Section 323a of the Criminal Code if the act committed while intoxicated is an offense referred to in numbers 1 to 6,
7. an offense under Sections 16 to 19 of the Act against Unfair Competition,
8. an offense under Section 142 para. 1 of the Patent Act, § 25 para. 1 of the Design Act, § 10 para. 1 of the Semiconductor Protection Act, § 39 para. 1 of the Plant Variety Protection Act, § 143 para. 1, § 143a para. 1 and § 144 para. 1 and 2 of the Trademark Act, § 51 para. 1 and § 65 para. 1 of the Design Act, §§ 106 to 108 and § 108b para. 1 and 2 of the Copyright Act and § 33 of the Act on Copyright in Works of Fine Arts and Photography.