Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger

Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger ( Leutheusser; born 26 July 1951) is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party and a prominent advocate of human rights in Germany and Europe.

Within the FDP, she is a leading figure of the social-liberal wing.

After graduating from gymnasium in Minden in 1970, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger started studying law in Göttingen and Bielefeld.

In 1975, she passed the first state exam in Hamm, in 1978 the second state exam in Düsseldorf.

In 1978 Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger became a member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

From 1979 to 1990, she worked at the Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt in Munich, eventually as managing director.

From 12 December 1990 Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was a member of the German Bundestag.

Since 1991 she has been a member of federal board of the FDP.

She served as Federal Minister of Justice of Germany from 1992 to 1996 in the cabinet of Helmut Kohl and again in the second Merkel cabinet from 2009 to 2013.

On 18 May 1992 she was sworn in as Federal Minister of Justice of Germany, following the nomination of incumbent Klaus Kinkel as Foreign Minister in the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

She had previously won an internal vote against Burkhard Hirsch and became the first woman to hold this office.

Upon taking office, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger pushed for police receiving new training and equipment to counter extremism and tougher court sentences for those found guilty of extremist violence.

In 1994, she publicly condemned a regional court for adulating radical rightist leader Günter Deckert after handing him a light sentence for Holocaust denial, calling the judges’ decision "a slap in the face to all victims of the Holocaust".

When Denmark agreed to extradite Gary Lauck, an American neo-Nazi charged with being the main supplier of illegal fascist propaganda to German authorities in 1995, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger called the decision a "great victory against right-wing extremism."

In 1995 there was a broad public discussion in Germany about the invulnerability of the private domain by means of acoustic observation (Großer Lauschangriff, literally "big eavesdropping attack").

In this argument Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger strongly objected to expanding the state's right to interfere in citizens' private domain.

After the members of the FDP decided in a poll to support the conservative lead of the CDU in this matter, she resigned from her office on 1 January 1996.

In addition to her mandate as a member of the German parliament (Bundestag), she worked as a lawyer in Munich since 1997.

From May 1997 Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was a member of the Steering Committee of the FDP ("Präsidium").

From 1999 to 2000 she was a member of an international inquiry commission of the United Nations to examine allegations of human rights violations in East Timor and submitted its report to secretary general Kofi Annan.

On 2 December 2000 she also became FDP chairwoman for the Federal State of Bavaria.

She served twice as Deputy Chairwoman of the FDP parliamentary group, from 2 February 2001 to 2 October 2002 and from 27 September 2005 until 28 October 2009.

Following her time in government, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger sharpened her profile as deputy parliamentary leader of the FDP and high-profile civil rights campaigner.

From 2003 to 2009 she was member of the German delegation at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

As member of the Council of Europe's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, she conducted an investigative trip to Russia and authored a critical report on the country's judicial system.

During the 16th Legislative Term of the Bundestag between 2005 and 2009, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was spokeswoman on legal policy for the FDP parliamentary group, chairwoman of the FDP in the parliamentary committee on legal affairs and alternate member in the parliamentary committee on human rights and humanitarian aid.

In 2008, she presented a report to the Parliamentary Assembly on the investigation of the Gongadze case and other crimes of the Kuchma era in Ukraine.

In 2008, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger – in her role as chairwoman of the FDP in Bavaria – successfully ran the party's election campaign in the Bavarian state elections that year, where the FDP reentered the state parliament after 14 years of absence.

From 2009, she also served on the parliamentary body in charge of selecting the judges of the Highest Courts of Justice, namely the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), the Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG), the Federal Fiscal Court (BFH), the Federal Labour Court (BAG), and the Federal Social Court (BSG).

Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was also active in the Council of Europe.

Titled Allegations of Politically Motivated Abuses of the Criminal Justice System in Council of Europe Member States, her 2009 report examined alleged abuses in Britain, Germany, France, and Russia.

Much of the document focused on Russia, detailing several recent cases that "give rise to concerns that the fight against 'legal nihilism' launched by President Medvedev is still far from won."

During an April 2009 visit to Ukraine, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, co-rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, cautiously encouraged reform of the parliamentary system in Ukraine.

She also expressed regret that those who ordered Georgiy Gongadze's murder had still not been brought to justice.

In the negotiations to form a coalition government of the FDP and the Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian CSU) following the 2009 federal elections, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger led the FDP delegation in the working group on internal and legal affairs; her counterpart of the CDU/CSU was Wolfgang Schäuble.

Between 2009 and 2013, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger served as Federal Minister of Justice again, this time in the second Merkel cabinet.

Alongside four men, she was the only female FDP member in Merkel's cabinet and the only FDP member of the cabinet to have previously held government office.

During her time in office, she would often push the FDP's pro-civil liberties agenda, but frequently encountered resistance from a conservatives-controlled interior ministry led by Thomas de Maizière and later Hans-Peter Friedrich.

In 2013, the new German government announced Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger's candidacy for the office of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe.

Sabine Leutheusser was born in Minden, North Rhine-Westphalia.