6.  The applicant was born in 1977 and lives in Überherrn. He had worked as a prison officer in the prison of Saarbrücken.
7.  In April 2007 the prison authorities discovered that a mobile phone had been smuggled into the prison in December 2006. In May 2007 an investigation was opened against the applicant and in October 2007 several investigative measures against the applicant, including telephone surveillance, were ordered. On 14 January 2008 the applicant was summoned for questioning and on 16 January 2008 he was interviewed by the police. On 13 May 2008 the public prosecutor’s office filed a bill of indictment on charges of taking a bribe. He was accused of having accepted a bribe in the amount of 200 euros (EUR), of having smuggled a mobile phone into the prison and of having provided it to an inmate. Charges were also brought against seven other accused.
8.  Subsequently, the District Court appointed defence counsel for all accused, and provided them in turn with access to the case files, including the recordings of the telephone surveillance. The refusal to appoint counsel for one co-accused was appealed against before the Regional Court, which decided on that matter in April 2009.
9.  On 8 January 2010 the main proceedings were instituted before the District Court, and on 12 January 2010 the court scheduled the trial hearings. It subsequently enquired with counsel for the defence as to which dates might be suitable for further hearings for oral argument in the months of June and July 2010 and on which days in April 2010 it would be possible to hold a preparatory meeting.
10. The first hearing of the main proceedings took place on 3 May 2010 and after fourteen hearings the District Court convicted the applicant for having taken a bribe and sentenced him to a term of imprisonment of one year and four months, suspended on probation. On 23 September 2010 the written judgment was filed by the court. In October 2010 the applicant was preliminarily suspended from his duties and his salary was reduced by approximately 25 %.
11.  The applicant lodged an appeal against the judgment. In addition, the four co-accused and the public prosecutor appealed against the respective judgments.
12.  In September 2011 the applicant changed his defence counsel; new counsel was provided with access to the case file.
13.  The appeal proceedings commenced on 25 October 2011 and ended after seven hearings on 18 November 2011. The Regional Court acquitted the applicant as well as his co-defendants. It provided the judgment in writing on 23 December 2011.
14.  On the day on which the judgment was pronounced, 18 November 2011, the public prosecutor lodged an appeal on points of law and submitted the reasoning on 16 January 2012. Responses to the appeal were submitted by the accused, and the Court of Appeal scheduled a hearing for 21 January 2013.
15.  On 21 January 2013 the Court of Appeal set the judgment of the Regional Court aside and remitted the matter to the Regional Court.
16.  New appeal proceedings commenced on 11 February 2015 and ended on 2 April 2015. The Regional Court convicted the applicant for having taken a bribe and sentenced him to eight months’ imprisonment. It suspended the execution of the prison sentence on probation and declared three of the eight months as having been served.
17.  In its reasoning concerning sentencing the court held, inter alia, that it had to be taken into consideration in favour of the applicant that the deed had been committed already in 2006, that more than eight years had elapsed since then and that he had been subjected for many years, since 2007, to a criminal investigation and court proceedings that had been pursued against him. The court had also taken into account that the applicant had been suspended from service as soon as he had been convicted by the court of first instance and as a consequence had been receiving only a reduced salary since then.
18.  Lastly, the court declared three months of the prison sentence as having been served in order to compensate for the excessively long proceedings. These had resulted from the fact that the presiding judge had only been able to schedule hearings on the matter from 11 February 2015 onwards after the matter had been remitted by the Court of Appeal on 29 January 2013. A discontinuation of the proceedings sought by the applicant based on the unreasonable length of the proceedings had, however, not been appropriate. This was only an option in extreme cases, where the weight of the disadvantage to be compensated for was greater than the weight of the punishment to be executed, to which such compensation was to apply. This standard, the court held, had not been met in the applicant’s case.
19.  The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law against the judgment of the Regional Court on 2 April 2015 and submitted his writ of appeal on points of law on 8 April 2015.
20.  On 29 April 2016 the Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law as being manifestly ill-founded. His subsequent complaint of a violation of his right to be heard was to no avail either. The appellate judgment of the Regional Court thus became final on 12 May 2016.
21.  On 2 June 2016 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint. On 4 July 2016 the Federal Constitutional Court decided not to admit it for adjudication (2 BvR 1140/16).
22.  As a consequence of the conviction becoming final, the applicant lost his status as a civil servant pursuant to the Status of Civil Servants Act (Beamtenstatusgesetz). A statement to that effect by the authorities was not required, nor did a formal notification have to be sent to the applicant.
23.  The applicant then applied to the Administrative Court seeking an interim injunction, under which he would retain his status as a civil servant for the time being, and the Land of Saarland would be instructed to continue paying his basic salary. By a decision of 12 July 2016 the Administrative Court dismissed his application, holding, inter alia, that it was contrary to the Status of Civil Servants Act (see paragraph 34 below). The court also stated that the fact that, in the event that the suspension of his prison sentence was revoked, only five months would have to be served, did not change the fact that he had been sentenced to a term of imprisonment of at least six months.
24.  On 6 October 2016 the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal lodged by the applicant against the decision of the Administrative Court of 12 July 2016.