Section 41 of the German Code of Civil Procedure excludes a judge from a case kraft Gesetzes, by operation of law, when the judge is a party to it. The same rule applies when the case involves the judge’s spouse or close relatives. The judge does not decide whether to step aside. The law has already decided. German literature has a famous comedy on the opposite case. In Kleist’s Der zerbrochne Krug, the village judge Adam must try a case that he caused himself.