Lore Maria Peschel-Gutzeit

Lore Maria Peschel-Gutzeit (26 October 1932 – 2 September 2023) was a German judge and politician. Born in Hamburg, she became an advocate for family law, children's rights, and gender equality. As the first female president of a family senate, she served as Senator for Justice in Hamburg and Berlin. She implemented key legislation promoting gender equality. Recognized with the Marie Juchacz Marie Juchacz Women's Prize in 2019, she continued her legal career until her death in Berlin on 2 September 2023, at the age of 90.

Early life
Peschel-Gutzeit was born in Hamburg as the daughter of a teacher and a major general. Her mother's family, which suffered during World War I, also hailed from Hamburg. Peschel-Gutzeit's biological father didn't play a significant role in her life. In her autobiography, she referred to her adoptive father, former Nazi General Hans Gutzeit, as her biological father. However, he formally adopted her only after she reached adulthood. Until then, she bore her mother's name, Brüggmann. She had a half-sister who was four years older from her mother's first marriage. After the bombing of Hamburg and being sent away as part of the children's evacuation, she returned to Hamburg in 1946 with her half-sister.

Career
Peschel-Gutzeit studied law from 1951 at the University of Hamburg and the Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg, completing her legal education in 1959 with the Second State Examination in Law. Following this, she briefly practiced as a lawyer before assuming the role of a judge at the Regional Court of Hamburg. Early in her career, Peschel-Gutzeit focused on family law, children's rights, and gender equality. She served as the chairwoman of the German Association of Women Lawyers (Deutscher Juristinnenbund) from 1977 to 1981 and joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1988.

Starting in 1972, she served as a family judge at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg. In 1984, following some internal conflicts, she became the first woman appointed as the chair of a family senate. In 1990, she earned her Doctor of Juridical Science (Dr. jur.) from the University of Freiburg with her thesis titled 'The Right to Access to One's Own Child: A Systematic Presentation.'

In 1988, as part of Emma magazine's PorNO campaign, a legislative proposal aiming to establish a German law against pornography, developed in collaboration with Peschel-Gutzeit, was published; however, it did not get implemented.

In 1991, she was elected by the Hamburg Parliament to the Senate (government) and became the Senator for Justice. She held this position until the end of 1993, when the SPD lost the absolute majority and formed a coalition with the STATT Party (Voscherau III Senate).

In 1994, she succeeded Jutta Limbach as the Senator for Justice in Berlin under the Eberhard Diepgen Senate (Diepgen III Senate).

She left this office in 1997 to once again assume the position of Senator for Justice in Hamburg, this time under Ortwin Runde (SPD) in a coalition with the Alliance 90/The Greens. After the government lost its majority in the parliamentary election on 23 September 2001, Peschel-Gutzeit left office and retired from politics. She implemented corresponding legislative proposals, such as the 'Lex Peschel' (§ 92 BBG), which stipulated that civil servants could work part-time for family reasons. She also advocated for the 'right to vote from birth,' allowing parents to exercise this right on behalf of their children until they reached adulthood, as discussed in the Neue Juristische Wochenschrift.

She advocated for joint parental custody and children's rights. In 2019, she founded the family and inheritance law firm Peschel-Gutzeit, Fahrenbach & Breuer on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm, where she continued practicing law until her death at the age of 90.

In 2019, she was honored with the Marie Juchacz Women's Prize of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate for her pioneering work in the field of women's rights.

Personal life
Her first marriage, to a terminally ill colleague, ended in 1958 due to his death and they remained childless. She remarried and had three children with her second husband. Peschel-Gutzeit published her autobiography, 'Naturally Equal', in 2012. She died on 2 September 2023, in Berlin.

Publications

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 * Autobiography written with
 * As editor:
 * Autobiography written with
 * Autobiography written with
 * Autobiography written with