ABSTRACT
The control of prisons and the protection of those in prison rest on two pillars: Institutional oversight and prison monitoring by national and international bodies as the first pillar and individual complaints procedures, including the possibility to challenge prison decisions before a court as the second pillar. In this chapter, we will concentrate on two aspects of this combined protection system in the German context. First, we will look at prison litigation in Germany and highlight its overall impact on the prison system by introducing the legislative framework and analysing leading cases and recent case law. Second, we will explore in how far its practice keeps the legislation's promise by looking at the individual prisoner's possibility to access the courts and find redress when their rights have been infringed.
