Deadlines and court appointments in the Corona crisis
Corona pandemic leads to a noticeable restructuring of the regulated processes in all areas of life. Since all people are affected by the effects, the restrictions also affect the judiciary directly. This leads to uncertainty in relation to the implementation of court appointments or the course of judicial deadlines.
Despite the crisis, the judiciary is able to act. Court proceedings continue to run normally. Constant deadlines remain and must fundamentally comply with the parties of a court trial. If this is not possible due to the special circumstances, applications for the extension of the deadline must be submitted. The courts are kept, to regularly pay these applications. An extension of the deadline is always possible if there are considerable reasons (see Section 224 (2) ZPO). The officially arranged restrictions in social life, the inevitably associated challenges in the coordination between the lawyer and the client or even delayed third -party work are generally such "significant reasons".
The decision on the priority of a court date is the discharge of judicial independence. Binding instructions to the judiciary are not possible. Nevertheless, the courts feel obliged to protect the process participants, the lawyers, witnesses, experts, the interested public and their employees from infection. Court appointments are therefore regularly eliminated in civil trials and postponed to a later date. If the court does not do this on its own, an application for postponement is recommended (see § 227 ZPO). In turn, considerable reasons have to be cited as justification. It is also conceivable to go into the written procedure in agreement with all parties. Quite new is the possibility of making an oral hearing via video conference (see § 128a ZPO). However, it remains to be seen whether the courts actually fall more and more in view of the necessary technical requirements.
