Diritto ed Economia dell'ImpresaISSN 2499-3158
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08/04/2022 - The digitalization of German Courts

argomento: News del mese - Diritto Internazionale e Comunitario

Articoli Correlati: Germany - Justice - Digitalization

Starting from 1st January 2022, all applications, declarations and notifications by lawyers in the German civil Courts are to be made only electronically, as provided in § 130d ZPO. According to this provision, the preparatory briefs of the cases and their annexes, as well as the applications and declarations to be submitted to the tribunal in writing by a lawyers, a public authority or a legal person governed by public law, including associations to be established to fulfill its public functions, must be transmitted as an electronic document. For this purpose, lawyers have an electronic e-mail address (beA) which allows them to transmit documents and statements to the Courts. If the transmission or electronic communication is temporarily impossible for technical reasons, the possibility remains to transmit according to the previous rules (by fax or by post). However, the existence of a temporary impossibility must be prove at the time of the replacement submission or immediately thereafter and an electronic document must also be sent subsequently at the request of the Court. Surprisingly, German justice is lagging behind in this area. In other countries (for example Italy) the practice has become widespread for some time and lawyers have at their disposal the tool of the Telematic Civil Process to file communications, deeds and memories.