The Central Registry of State Judicial Administrations (German: Zentrale Erfassungsstelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, ZESt) in Salzgitter, West Germany, was established on 24 November 1961 in the aftermath of the construction of the Berlin Wall.
Its function was to verify human rights violations by the government of East Germany like homicide at the Inner German border, political persecution, torture and maltreatment, etc.
Intended for deterrence, in the long run the information should have led to the initiation of criminal proceedings in the case of a reunification.
General Secretary Erich Honecker explicitly demanded its dissolution, but also the Bundestag parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Party in a 1984 resolution unanimously denoted the ZESt "ineffective" and "needless".
After reunification, the ZESt provided its files on about 40,000 proceedings for the local law enforcement agencies in the new states of Germany, and was dissolved in 1992.