Restoration of time limit for appellate justification in criminal proceedings

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) granted the defendant's application for restoration to the former state (*Wiedereinsetzung in den vorigen Stand*), thereby reinstating her appeal against the Landgericht Köln's judgment of May 31, 2021, and rendering the lower court's subsequent dismissal of the appeal as inadmissible on September 9, 2021, moot. The dispute concerned the procedural status of a criminal appeal where the defendant had filed her initial notice of appeal within the statutory deadline but failed to submit the required substantive justification (*Begründung*) within the ensuing time limit, leading the trial court to reject the appeal as inadmissible under § 349 Abs. 1 StPO. The decisive legal basis was § 45 Abs. 1 StPO, under which the BGH found that the defendant successfully demonstrated within the prescribed period that the delay was not attributable to her fault (*keines Verschuldens*) and that she had promptly performed the omitted procedural act, thus mandating the restoration of her procedural rights.