Summary

Cassation grounds constitute a central problem in the cassation procedure regarding criminal matters and in the cassation procedure in general. Although a cassation appeal is treated as a legal appeal as it may only be based on a violation of law or an incorrect solution of a legal issue by an inferior court, the distinction of a legal issue from that of fact is often complex. Also, the criteria for determining the cassation grounds are not unequivocal. Both in Estonia and Germany, errors in the interpretation of rules of substantive law and material violations of the procedure law constitute the grounds for filing a cassation appeal. The relevant rules of law in the Estonian and German procedure laws are also similar. As the subject has attracted little attention in the Estonian jurisprudence, the author gives an overview of different theories underlying the determination of cassation grounds and their criticisms in the contemporary German legal literature.
Further, the author examines the corresponding provisions of the German Code of Criminal Procedure and the trends in the German judicial practice concerning cassation grounds. The author introduces the approach where the cassation grounds are determined on the basis of the purpose of the cassation. Also the author surveys the theory of achievement possibilities and the theory treating the division of labour and responsibilities between different court instances and their criticisms. In addition, the author addresses approaches where the cassation grounds are delineated on the basis of the logical sentence structure as opposed to approaches based on the classification of concepts into concepts of legal language and those of general language.