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Your PWWL editorial team
Christine Wahlig
Attorney at law
Editorial Management
Alice Tanke
Marketing Manager
German court proceedings are characterised by the principles of publicity, immediacy and orality. These principles are expressed in a hearing in which all parties involved in the court proceedings as well as the public meet in a courtroom.
However, the court system is currently largely at a standstill: Due to the COVID 19 epidemic, with the exception of urgent proceedings, the courts have stopped court hearings in March. Nevertheless, the functioning of the court system must be guaranteed even in times of an epidemic due to the constitutionally enshrined guarantee of legal protection.
The Federal Ministry of Labour has reacted and has now proposed a draft bill to change the Labour Court Act and other laws to ensure the functioning of the labour courts during the COVID 19 epidemic.
More specifically, the following is proposed:
Introduction of a new provision in the Labour Court Act, which provides that lay judges, parties, their representatives and advisers as well as witnesses and experts may now – subject to the existence of an epidemic situation of national importance – participate in a verbal hearing from a different location. The hearing will be simultaneously transmitted in sound and vision to this location, i.e. the hearing will take place via video conference.
In the case of the honorary judges, the discussing and voting should also take place virtually, whereby organisational measures must be taken to ensure that the secrecy of the consultations is maintained.
An immediate appeal against the order of a virtual hearing is possible within a period of one week.
In addition, labour courts may contrary to general principles exclude the public completely from the hearing. The aim is to reduce the number of people present in the courtroom and thus the risk of infection.
In addition to these procedural changes, the Dismissal Protection Act is also to be adjusted:
The deadline for filing a dismissal protection claims shall be extended from three to five weeks. This is intended to ensure that even during an epidemic employees can safeguard their rights, especially since failure to meet the deadline for filing an action has particularly sensitive consequences due to the fictional effectiveness of the dismissal.
All the above measures shall apply only until 31 December 2020.
By Verena Braeckeler-Kogel, MAES (Basel) and Anne-Kathrin von Dahlen
