Discontinuation under § 153a StPO: what consent means

§ 153a StPO works only with consent. The Staatsanwaltschaft needs it, and the court must consent as well. The accused person thereby makes a declaration that steers the proceedings in a particular direction: they come to an end, but they do not end in an acquittal.

That is exactly where the balancing lies. Anyone who accepts a discontinuation against a Geldauflage buys certainty about the proceedings. Anyone who refuses keeps open the possibility of an acquittal and accepts in return that charges may be preferred. Which side weighs more heavily depends on the evidence, on the allegation, on the professional consequences and on how much strain the person can bear. There is no general answer to that.

The Staatsanwaltschaft sets a period for compliance. Under § 153a Abs. 1 StPO it is at most six months in the cases of sentence 2 numbers 1 to 3, 5 and 7, and at most one year in the cases of sentence 2 numbers 4, 6 and 8. The period may afterwards be extended once by three months.

The time limit is the point that matters most in practice. The provisional discontinuation becomes final only once the condition has been complied with. Anyone who transfers the sum too late or to the wrong account risks the proceedings continuing. Keep the payment records.

This sentence is the reason why the consent needs to be thought through.

A discontinuation is not a conviction. Under § 4 BZRG, final decisions by which a court has imposed a penalty or pronounced one of the further consequences named there are entered in the Bundeszentralregister (the federal central criminal records register). A discontinuation under § 153a StPO is not among them. Anyone wondering how this affects the Führungszeugnis (a certificate of conduct issued from the register on application) will find the details in our guide on when you have a criminal record; the right to describe yourself as having no criminal record is governed by § 53 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 BZRG.

But a discontinuation is not an acquittal either. The matter remains in the file of the Staatsanwaltschaft. For certain occupational groups, for professional disciplinary proceedings, for reliability checks and for questions of residence status, that difference can be significant. Anyone working in such a field, or seeking naturalisation or a residence permit, should have the consequences clarified before consenting, not afterwards.

There is a widespread misunderstanding here. Under § 467 Abs. 1 StPO, on an acquittal, on a refusal to open the main proceedings or on a discontinuation, the expenses of the public purse and the necessary expenses of the accused person are borne by the public purse. For a discontinuation under § 153a StPO, however, there is an express counter-exception: under § 467 Abs. 5 StPO the necessary expenses of the accused person are not imposed on the public purse where the proceedings are finally discontinued after a preceding provisional discontinuation under § 153a StPO.

A restriction also applies to discretionary discontinuations: where the court discontinues the proceedings under a provision that allows it to do so at its discretion, it may under § 467 Abs. 4 StPO refrain from imposing the necessary expenses of the accused person on the public purse.

In practice this means: anyone who consents to a discontinuation against a Geldauflage generally bears their own defence costs in addition to the sum imposed. The costs decision itself must be made under § 464 Abs. 1 und Abs. 2 StPO in the decision that concludes the proceedings; a sofortige Beschwerde (an appeal that must be lodged within a fixed short period) is admissible against it under § 464 Abs. 3 StPO. What a defence costs is explained separately under Fees.