e-Court Membership Fees

By international comparison, the German system of civil justice is quite efficient, both in terms of length of proceedings and cost. The average period of time taken by a court of first instance to issue a decision is between six and eleven months for proceedings with a value in dispute of above €5,000. In large complex cases, the court proceedings may take longer. Nevertheless, even in such cases one may reasonably expect to obtain a judgment by a court of first instance within one to two years.

There are various reasons for the efficiency of the German system: The German law of civil procedure is designed to streamline and accelerate the process, to the extent it remains in line with the principle of due process. The judges are obliged to expedite the proceedings and play an active role in the proceedings. There are neither time-consuming discovery procedures nor jury trials under German law. There are only a limited number of court hearings, and they usually do not take more than one or two hours. The German civil law system allows the judge to find and apply the relevant law in a relatively efficient manner. If based on the assumption that the facts alleged in the statement of claim are true the court finds that the claim is unfounded, it can dismiss the case on the merits after a short hearing and without taking evidence. The court also compares the arguments in the various written pleadings of the parties to determine the crucial issues of the case at a very early stage of the proceedings. Only if an allegation of fact is disputed and found to be relevant for deciding the case, the court will order to take evidence regarding this fact. Thus, the issues on which evidence will be taken remain limited.

In addition, the personal performance of a judge is measured by the number of cases he or she concludes per year. Assuming that the judge has an interest in advancing his or her career, he or she will endeavour to expedite the proceedings as much as possible. If the court proceedings take too long, the parties now even have a remedy which provides for reasonable compensation for the damage suffered due to the length of the proceedings. This remedy has been introduced by a law which took effect as of 3 December 2011.

German judges are not appointed by public election like in some courts in the USA, but they are selected by an independent commission or the administration, mainly based on their academic qualifications. The standards of the Germany judiciary, both on a professional and an ethical level, are very high. Corruption in the administration of justice is unheard of.