The opposition in the Hessian state parliament accuses Justice Minister Eva Kühne-Hörmann (CDU) of failure and irresponsibility.

The reason for the SPD and FDP is the reporting in this newspaper about the time and cost plans for the digitization of the judiciary that have gotten out of joint.

There is also sharp criticism from legal circles, some of which is articulated in long letters to the editor.

Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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Since the beginning of the year, law firms and authorities have been obliged to deliver their mail to the courts electronically.

However, because the introduction of the e-file has been delayed by six years, the courts in Hesse cannot deal with the files received in the same way as is the case in other federal states.

As before, only the paper file is legally binding in Hesse.

All documents received on files are first printed out.

Walter Wallmann, President of the State Audit Office, estimates that half a million briefs a year would no longer be required if e-files had already been introduced.

His authority certifies that the Ministry of Justice has “inadequate” project management.

"Ignorant and irresponsible"

“Apparently nobody in the area of ​​responsibility of the CDU Minister of Justice understood for a long time what it actually means to convert the judiciary completely to digital legal transactions and how complex the project would be.” This is how the SPD’s legal policy spokesman, Gerald Kummer, puts it .

When it comes to the digitization of administration in general and judiciary in particular, it is not enough to simply reproduce existing work processes electronically, which is often not even possible.

Rather, the official and legal channels must be structurally adapted to the digital age without the reliability of the case law suffering as a result.

"We are talking about what is probably the most fundamental change in business processes in the judiciary since the end of the German Empire," says Kummer.

A project of this magnitude must be thoroughly prepared at the highest level.

And the implementation must also be consistently monitored at the highest level.

Apparently neither of these things happened in the Ministry of Justice.

Instead, the minister tried to outsource the digital revolution in the judiciary to a service provider.

"This is ignorant in terms of content and politically highly irresponsible."

Discrepancy between the judiciary and the economy

If the digitization of the Hessian judiciary now takes twice as long as expected and the costs increase by more than 350 percent, this shows one thing: "Ms. Kühne-Hörmann has stood by passively in recent years, as in the poorly prepared and poorly managed project eJustice Millions of tax dollars were burned without Hesse getting any closer to a functioning digitization of the judiciary.”

According to the deputy, he repeatedly called for a reliable project plan in the legal committee.

But the minister has not yet submitted a comprehensible needs analysis or a work and cost plan.

The Justice Department had completely lost control of the project.

"This form of organized irresponsibility must come to an end," demands the Social Democrat.

The minister must finally inform Parliament fully about the problems and their causes and explain how she wants to save the project - "if it can be saved at all".

The minister is failing when it comes to the crucial future questions of the judiciary, agrees the legal policy spokeswoman for the FDP, Marion Schardt-Sauer.

The Hessian courts have lost touch throughout Germany.

Instead of individual pet projects, the minister must look at the performance of the entire judiciary.

This included rapid digitization as in other countries and appropriate staffing.

The minister does not even have to initiate her own ideas, but only implement what countries such as North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate have already implemented, according to the MP.

"While the entire world of work is going digital, everyday work in Hesse's courts has changed only slightly in the eight years of their tenure." The discrepancy between the judiciary and the free economy is growing, says Schardt-Sauer.

This also applies to the competition for skilled workers.

The delayed introduction of the e-file is “a sad prime example of a lack of creative will”, which is noticeable in many other areas.