Current topics

On behalf of the Presidents of the Higher Regional Courts, the Kammergericht, the Bavarian Higher Regional Court and the Federal Court of Justice, the working group on ‘Modernisation of Civil Procedure’ (external link, opens in a new window) has conducted a comprehensive examination (external link, opens in a new window) of how new technological possibilities can be put to good use in civil proceedings.

The key regulatory proposals summarised in the discussion paper (external link, opens in a new window) were presented and put forward for discussion on 10 September 2021 at the 3rd Regensburg Forum on Procedural Law (external link, opens in a new window).

The proposals were taken up by the “Digitalisation of Procedural Law” research centre as part of the interdisciplinary research projects “Basisdokument” and “Reallabor Strukturvorgaben für den Parteivortrag”.

Building on the proposals of the ‘Modernisation of Civil Procedure’ working group (external link, opens in a new window), the ‘Basic Document’ research group – an interdisciplinary working group comprising the Althammer Chair, the Chair of Media Informatics held by Prof. Dr Christian Wolff (external link, opens in a new window), and the Higher Regional Court of Nuremberg – has set itself the task of investigating and discussing how, in future, preparatory pleadings in civil proceedings can be consolidated into an “electronic base document”.

Taking into account the forthcoming transition to electronic case management, ways should be found to incorporate the parties’ full submissions—both factual and legal, including their substantive claims—into a single electronic document in as simple and user-friendly a form as possible, in order to bring electronic case management into line with the current state of digitalisation. The factual submissions contained in the base document are intended, in the long term, to form the basis for the court’s decision and thus take on the function of the statement of facts in the judgement.

By developing an initial prototype template, the “Base Document” research group sought to provide impetus for the design and technical implementation of such an “electronic base document”.

During the course of the project, an initial (non-functional) prototype of a “basic document” was created as part of a practical seminar (external link, opens in a new window), which visualises the potential workflow within a basic document.

This prototype was presented – with the aid of a film – (external link, opens in a new window) at a state reception hosted by the Bavarian Minister of Justice, Georg Eisenreich, on 26 October 2021 (external link, opens in a new window).