In the second year of the pandemic, the Hessian social courts reduced the number of old stocks by eleven percent.

While at the end of 2020 there were still a good 35,600 procedures to be processed, by the end of 2021 there were only 31,800.

In addition, significantly fewer new procedures were filed last year than in previous years.

Only the state social court recorded a slight increase, as the court's president, Alexander Seitz, said at the annual press conference on Wednesday.

Anna Sophia Lang

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The number of new procedures in the area of ​​basic social security has fallen significantly, by almost 30 percent.

Seitz assumes that this has to do with reduced needs tests due to the pandemic.

For the current year, the courts are expecting new corona-related proceedings.

In addition to the hundreds of pending cases involving FFP2 masks, tablets and lost sales, Seitz expects disputes about the approval of short-time work benefits and about Covid-19 as an occupational disease or infection as an accident at work.

Tens of thousands of suspicious activity reports have already been filed with the trade associations across Germany.

The courts also expect procedures relating to vaccination damage, accidents in the home office and blocking times for unemployment benefit I for unvaccinated health care workers.

While all this is happening, the social courts must also be converted to electronic files by January 1, 2026.

Compared to other jurisdictions in Hesse, they are "quite a leader," said Seitz.

“But we will still have a lot to do there.” In the spring, the state social court also started a pilot project and thus followed the social court in Kassel.

"This is a paradigm shift in judicial work," said Seitz, comparing the electronic file with the introduction of computers.

Work processes would have to be reworked, files could be structured differently, cooperation with the service units would be reorganized, and instead of a stack of files there would only be a screen waiting in the courtroom.

Technically, too, the President sees the social courts on the right track.

The worries are bigger when it comes to the offspring.

"We are facing a personnel upheaval." The baby boomers were increasingly retiring.

At the beginning of 2023, more than a quarter of the judges in the social courts will be trial judges.

The training of the young colleagues means a considerable additional effort.

To do that must be done "as fluently as possible and without gaps," said Seitz.

He sees one reason why recruiting young people causes difficulties in law studies: there, social legislation is hardly ever mentioned.