Justitia - Where are Your Scales?

Justitia is the Roman Goddess of Justice and also the allegorical personification of the legal system. Her attributes are:

• the sword, with which the law and the sentence of court can be enforced

• the blindfold, to represent the objectivity of the court and its impartiality

• the scales, to indicate that law is spoken after properly weighing arguments for and against.

The Bronze statue in the panorama is the statue of the Mourning Justice by Karl Dietrich (1883–1954). It is located in the highest Court of Appeal of the State of Baden-Württemberg, the “Oberlandesgericht”. Only the Federal Court of Appeal for the entire Germany is higher in rank. Both courts are located in Karlsruhe.

Justitia is mourning for all the members of the legal professions in Baden who lost their lives in World War I. Above Justitia one can read the words “Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit” – “Unity and law and freedom”, representing the first verse of the German national anthem.

When we set up the equipment for taking this panorama we had to realize that this particular Justitia is not carrying scales – bad luck for this WWP-Event “Scale”! But then, luckily for us and of course the event too, resident Judge Haarer came along and told us where to find the scales: They are located in the banister of the staircase right above the statue of Justitia, just above the lion’s head. So our thanks go to him for the explanation and also to the court usher for lighting the statue for us.

When taking this panorama, I was in the company of Reinhard Schmolze. On this day we had a session in the nearby "Amtsgericht" in the case “Schmolze versus ZKM”: Several years ago the ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie – Center for Art and Media – Karlsruhe) had copied an enormous amount of panoramas from the WWP server without previously asking for permission. Reinhard and I had taken this case into Court, since there was sufficient evidence for the unjustified use of some of the panoramas. This process has by now been taking years – the first session in Court took place in February 2010. In this last session the Court heard an expert on the issue of proper payment for photographs and panoramas. There will be a decision of the Court on the 5th of April 2013: Both Reinhard and I do hope that there will be a final judgment and not just another evidential decision that would lead to yet another delay.

Europe / Germany

Lat: 49° 0' 46.59" N
Long: 8° 23' 6.38" E

Elevation: 121 m

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

Canon EOS 5D MKII, Canon 15mm, Nodal Ninja Ultimate M1-L, PhotomatixPro, DXO, PTGui Pro, Photoshop, Pano2VR