Jurisdictional referral of criminal appeal based on internal case allocation plan for paper-based files

The Fifth Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ordered the referral of the case to the Fourth Criminal Senate due to a jurisdictional error, leaving the underlying criminal judgment on appeal otherwise unaffected. The dispute involved a criminal appeal filed by the defendant against a judgment rendered by the Regional Court of Bremen, which was initially assigned to the wrong senate. The decisive legal basis was the BGH's internal case allocation plan for 2025, which specifically assigns appeals originating from the jurisdiction of the Higher Regional Court of Bremen to the Fourth Criminal Senate; the court further clarified that the year of pending status for paper-based files is determined solely by the date of physical receipt at the BGH, which occurred in January 2025.