Imperfect justice

the long version

This book is an account of the sudden death of Socialist law in East Germany and of the reactions, hopes, and fears of some of its survivors. Imagine what happens when overnight a legal system is replaced by its ideological opposite - when people used to being coddled and disciplined by their law have to adjust to a State which expects them to look out for themselves - when men and women trained to serve and to legitimate their political system have to explain their complicity in its corruption - when in this process of national soul-searching, the Western victors alone may ask all the questions. The remarkable transformation of East German law following the collapse of the Communist regime and the dismantlement of the Berlin Wall in 1990 is related by an author uniquely qualified to understand what happened during this astonishing period. Inga Markovits was born in Germany but has spent 25 years teaching law at the University of Texas in Austin. It was upon returning to Berlin in November 1989, two weeks after the opening of the Wall, that she realized someone should try to record the events leading up to and following the death of Socialist law. Thus began this diary.