Munich (dpa / lby) – Bavaria wants to greatly expand the possibility of video negotiations in courts. By the end of June this year, all 99 courts under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice are to have video conferencing facilities. “The willingness of the Bavarian judiciary to get involved in digitization is great,” said Justice Minister Georg Eisenreich (CSU) on Friday in Munich. “We want to continue to invest heavily in technical equipment.”
Since the beginning of the corona pandemic, the Bavarian judiciary has increasingly relied on the option of conducting court hearings via video.
Hundreds of lawsuits have already been conducted online at the Munich District Court and the two regional courts in the city this year alone. According to Eisenreich, 539 negotiations were held there digitally between the beginning of January and the end of March.
According to the Ministry of Justice, there are 82 video conference systems available in the courts across Bavaria. According to the information, there is also an attachment to each of the three public prosecutor’s offices.
In addition, the courts in the Free State should also be able to negotiate via Microsoft Teams, after the Ministry of Justice judged pilot projects at the regional courts of Munich I, Nuremberg-Fürth, Würzburg and the Munich District Court to be successful. “After the successful pilot phase, the deployment will now be approved throughout Bavaria,” said Eisenreich.
But that’s not enough for Eisenreich. For some time now, he has been advocating the use of video technology in criminal proceedings. “If witnesses cannot appear in the courtroom because of quarantine measures, belonging to a risk group or travel restrictions, they should be able to be heard on video during the main hearing,” he said.
However, digitization is not only playing an increasingly important role in the courtroom – but also in correspondence. According to the ministry, Bavaria’s courts currently receive 65,000 electronic messages per week. Conversely, 75,000 messages are sent every week. Around 7.2 million messages are exchanged electronically each year.
Electronic legal transactions were introduced in civil, criminal and family law proceedings in October 2017 and January 2018, respectively, for bailiffs in January 2018. Eisenreich expects a further increase in the volume of data. “Because from 2022, professional process participants will be required to submit documents and attachments electronically.”
Analog mountains of files should soon be a thing of the past. The electronic file must be introduced in all German courts by 2026, as announced by the Ministry of Justice.
In Bavaria, the e-files are already available at the regional courts of Coburg, Landshut and Regensburg and at the local courts of Straubing and Dachau. The Munich Higher Regional Court and the Regensburg District Court are to follow shortly, followed by eight more regional courts in the course of the year.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210416-99-230055 / 3
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