The position of the judiciary is one of absolute independence of the administration. The judges can neither be removed, transferred to less desir able judicial stations, nor retired on pension against their will. All the judges (except those of the Imperial Court), about 8000 in number, are appointed and paid by the governments of the States in which they discharge their func tions, and they are regarded as State judges, although their positions are created by Imperial law, and their qualifications and duties are pre scribed by the same authority.
The Germans, like the French, from whom they have borrowed many legal institutions, have at tempted to separate the spheres of justice and administration, and have accordingly intrusted the decisions of administrative controversies, not to the regular judicial courts, as is done in the United States and England, but to special tribunals called administrative courts, composed partly of trained jurists and partly of active administrators. The judges of the German ad ministrative courts, unlike those of France, how ever, have a position of independence, and cannot be removed at the pleasure of the Emperor, by whom they are appointed. The most important
Imperial administrative courts are the poor law board, the railway court, the patent-office court, and the marine office. If conflicts of juris diction occur between the administrative and judicial courts, the proper forum is determined by the Imperial Court, there being no provision for a tribunal of conflicts as in France.
Finally, it should be said that there is little or no Imperial local government in Germany, since the Imperial laws are, for the most part, admin istered by the State Governments under the supervision of the Emperor. The chief local ad ministrative activity of the Empire, therefore, consists of such supervisory service as may be necessary to insure the strict enforcement of the Imperial laws by the State authorities. For local government in Germany, see PRUSSIA.