After the trainees have acquired practice and skill in these matters (generally speaking, no time limit can be set for this), the Board of Directors must gradually involve them in more important tasks, allow them to exercise a consultative vote in the council meetings, and give them documents for reporting, but only ones for which a co-referee is named at all times. Primarily, though, the trainees shall be employed in commissions, in oral and summary proceedings, and also in criminal proceedings under the supervision of another experienced and reliable commissioner, and in matters of lesser importance without any supervision.
In addition, during the entire training period, administrative trainees can and shall provide court representation to parties that apply to the College for legal counsel or who must receive such counsel ex officio; here, it goes without saying that the trainees are not allowed to attend consultations on these cases at the College.
In this way, the training period at the Electoral Judicial Colleges shall work not only toward the education of qualified individuals but also toward the permanent examination thereof. And We hope that, by constant and strict observation of their performance and actions, We will always manage to examine and evaluate them more effectively than by giving them a sheet of questions, which always proves a very inadequate test of their knowledge, especially their practical qualifications.
Accordingly, whenever the trainees perform exercises or tasks, the Directorate of the College shall pay constant attention to their conduct, their manner of behavior, their skill, diligence and assiduousness, making not only obligatory note of this in the quarterly reports but also enclosing in the quarterly reports themselves several of the written reports submitted by the trainees from time to time.
Although this administrative training is obligatory, partly for the sake of educating, partly for the sake of examining the aspiring counselors of justice, without regard to rank, it is not a guarantee of an actual right to employment; rather, when vacancies occur they will be filled by the trainees who prove to be the best qualified. [ . . . ]
Source: Münchner Intelligenzblatt, XXXth issue dated July 20, 1799. Col. 483-485.
Reprinted in Walter Demel and Uwe Puschner, eds., Von der Französischen Revolution bis zum Wiener Kongreß 1789-1815 [From the French Revolution to the Congress of Vienna, 1789-1815]. Deutsche Geschichte in Quellen und Darstellung, edited by Rainer A. Müller, volume 6. Stuttgart: P. Reclam, 1995, pp. 128-30.
Translation: Erwin Fink
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