Electronic communication
Since January 1, 2022, attorneys and public authorities are required under § 55d VwGO to submit pleadings and their attachments as well as motions and declarations to the court electronically. The courts have set up an electronic court and administrative mailbox (EGVP) for this purpose.
There is currently no obligation for other parties to the proceedings to submit their pleadings electronically via a secure transmission channel. Citizens can therefore continue to submit their pleadings by letter or fax in addition to electronic transmission.
To submit pleadings in electronic form, citizens can currently use a De-Mail account or a user account of a citizen portal such as the Bayern-Portal. The respective administrative court can be selected in the Bayern-Portal using the search function. After selecting the court, a link for submitting electronic documents appears under contact details. The prerequisite for using the Bayern-Portal is logging in with the eID function of the electronic ID card in order to identify oneself digitally to the court. In order to use a De-Mail account, it must be ensured that the mailbox is capable of sending a sender-confirmed De-Mail. Only if this option is set up and used, there is a possibility of formally communicating with the court.
However, a regular e-mail does not fulfill the formal requirements.
The legal basis for electronic legal communications is § 55a VwGO, § 55d VwGO and the „Verordnung über die technischen Rahmenbedingungen des elektronischen Rechtsverkehrs und über das besondere elektronische Behördenpostfach“. The Federal Government has published further technical requirements for the transmission and processing of electronic documents at the following link:
https://justiz.de/laender-bund-europa/elektronische_kommunikation/index.php
Current malfunction messages for the EGVP can be found under the following link: