The federal government is lagging behind in the digitization of the judiciary.

Currently, only seven of the 55 conference rooms at the six federal courts are equipped with video technology for conducting video negotiations, writes Christian Lange (CDU), Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) to some members of the FDP parliamentary group.

“Further procurement processes have been initiated,” explains Lange on behalf of the federal government.

With the answers to their small inquiry, which the FAZ had received in advance, the parliamentarians wanted to find out from the federal government the current status of the reform project “modernization of civil proceedings”.

Marcus Jung

Editor in business.

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"Just a fifth of the conference rooms of the federal courts are equipped with video technology," says Katrin Helling-Plahr soberly.

The expert on health and legal policy in the FDP parliamentary group criticizes the fact that the federal government is simply not fulfilling its obligation to provide the factual basis for the activities of our federal courts.

"The actions of the federal government almost seem like a plea for the fax, which unfortunately is still indispensable in the German judiciary."

Progressive social judges

The Federal Social Court in Kassel is best equipped. Video technology can currently be used in two of the four conference rooms. Then comes the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe. There, the civil and criminal senates can negotiate in three of the eight conference rooms via video switch. At the Federal Patent Court in Munich and at the Federal Administrative Court, this has so far only been possible in one conference room. According to the BMJV, the Federal Fiscal Court in Munich and the Federal Labor Court in Erfurt have not yet had video technology. The Federal Constitutional Court is not listed. Oral negotiations take place there less often. Important decisions and their justifications are broadcast by public service broadcasting.

The federal government puts the amount of expenditure on IT and technical equipment for the federal courts for 2019 at 5.3 million euros, for the pandemic year 2020 - this includes expenses for hardware and software as well as services. Obviously, the need in the federal courts has increased. "For the year 2021, the federal courts have planned IT funds amounting to around 14 million euros," says the response from the BMJV.

Nevertheless, Helling-Plahr criticizes the federal government's “lack of foresight”.

"Only this year does the federal government want to invest more in the digitization of the judiciary - long after the pandemic in Germany has reached its peak."

“It's about nothing less than the future of Germany as a legal location.

As is so often the case with digitization, the coalition acts half-heartedly and half-asleep. "For almost 20 years it has been possible to conduct video negotiations in civil proceedings, but the technical equipment of the courts is often" still poor, "emphasizes the legal politician.

Law has offered the possibility since 2002

The FDP parliamentary group based this statement in its request on a survey by the German Association of Judges. At the beginning of 2021, half of the civil judges surveyed stated that they had no opportunity for oral hearings via video transmission. Since 2002, the Code of Civil Procedure has given the courts the opportunity to conduct proceedings by means of image and sound transmission.

As in response to an earlier request from Helling-Plahr in the Bundestag, the federal government again replied that it was the sole responsibility of the federal states to equip the courts with video conferencing systems. State Secretary Lange refers to an overview of the existing systems that are in use at the courts and public prosecutor's offices. This shows that the equipment has progressed to different degrees in the individual countries, but also in the respective branches of the courts and instances.

In the almost three-week-old overview, the two southern German states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg are clearly ahead. It was only at the end of July that Bavaria's Justice Minister Georg Eisenreich (CSU) proudly announced that all 99 courts in the Free State have access to a system. Bavaria has purchased a total of 108 video conference systems. In Saxony-Anhalt this has so far only been possible at the Magdeburg Regional Court, in Thuringia only at the five justice centers. There are no figures at all for Bremen in the statistics from mid-August - one and a half years after the start of the corona pandemic.