Edzard Schmidt-Jortzig (born 8 October 1941) is a German

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

. He currently holds the chair for

public law Public law is the part of law that governs relations and affairs between legal persons and a government, between different institutions within a state, between different branches of governments, as well as relationships between persons that ...

at the

University of Kiel Kiel University, officially the Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, (, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a public research university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the ''Academia Holsator ...

. A member of the Free Democratic Party, he served as Federal Minister of Justice in the Fifth Kohl cabinet between 1996 and 1998. Born in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, Schmidt-Jortzig was raised in

Lüneburg Lüneburg, officially the Hanseatic City of Lüneburg and also known in English as Lunenburg, is a town in the German Bundesland (Germany), state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of another Hanseatic League, Hanseatic city, Hambur ...

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

. He studied law and received his first

Staatsexamen The ("state examination" or "exam by state"; pl.: ''Staatsexamina'') is a German government licensing examination that future physicians, dentists, physical therapists, teachers, research librarians, archivists, pharmacists, food chemists, psyc ...

in 1966, and the second in 1969. In 1984, he became a professor of public law at the University of Kiel and joined the Free Democratic Party. In the

1994 German federal election The 1994 German federal election was held in Germany on 16 October 1994 to elect the members of the 13th Bundestag. The CDU/CSU alliance led by Helmut Kohl remained the largest faction in parliament, with Kohl remaining Chancellor in a narrowly ...

, he earned a seat in the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet (assembly), Diet") is the lower house of the Germany, German Federalism in Germany, federal parliament. It is the only constitutional body of the federation directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag wa ...

, and in 1996, he succeeded Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger as Federal Minister of Justice of Germany.

External links

Biography at the German Bundestag
1941 births Living people Jurists from Berlin Justice ministers of Germany Members of the Bundestag for Schleswig-Holstein Members of the Bundestag 1998–2002 Members of the Bundestag 1994–1998 Academic staff of the University of Kiel Academic staff of the University of Münster Politicians from Berlin Members of the Bundestag for the Free Democratic Party (Germany) {{Germany-FDP-politician-stub