A German state has launched a program to teach refugees the basics of law in their new host country, with about 800 judges, prosecutors and judicial officials as their teachers.
The classes in the southern state of Bavaria were planned before the New Year's Eve assaults on women in Cologne, which is in western Germany.
But the program comes amid growing tensions and increasing concerns in Germany about how it will integrate the 1.1 million asylum-seekers who arrived last year alone.
The legal primer program was initiated by Bavaria's justice minister and includes lessons about freedom of opinion, the separation of religion and state and the equality of men and women.
Attendance for asylum-seekers is voluntary and only those who are likely to receive refugee status are invited to attend, the Bavarian justice ministry said.
Bavaria's justice minister, Winfried Bausback, who taught parts of the first legal education class in the town of Ansbach on Monday, said it's important to give newcomers an early "understanding of our basic values."
"Many asylum seekers come from regions where justice doesn't function or is being abused by dictatorships," he said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is under increasing pressure over her open-door policy to asylum-seekers following the New Year's Eve attacks.
Cologne police say 553 criminal complaints have been filed, about 45 per cent of which involve allegations of sexual offences.
Police say most of the suspects are believed to be foreigners, including at least some asylum-seekers.
Merkel's government on Tuesday announced planned reforms of laws on deportation and sexual offences that would make it significantly easier to expel immigrants who commit crimes.
