Draft bill for fundamental modernization of proceedings before administrative courts

The Administrative Court Regulations are to be fundamentally revised. This should reduce the workload on administrative courts and speed up court proceedings. The Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection has published the first draft to this effect which was sent to the relevant associations for comment.

The administrative courts are also to be given more effective instruments to enforce decisions against the state, and the formal requirements for appeals against official decisions are to be lowered. This is provided for in a draft law published by the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection on February 2, 2026.

The draft bill provides for the following changes in particular:

Changes in administrative court proceedings

Judicial staff at administrative courts should be deployed more efficiently; courts should be able to rule more frequently with smaller panels. Administrative courts should be able to focus more on carrying out the actual legal review.

Enforcement of administrative court decisions against public authorities (sovereign bodies)

Administrative courts should be given more effective means of enforcing decisions against public authorities. If a public authority, such as a city or state, fails to cooperate as required in the enforcement of an administrative court decision, the maximum possible penalty payment should be increased from €10,000 to €25,000. It should also be permissible to impose the penalty payment for multiple periods from the outset, for example per day, week, or month of non-compliance.

Objection by email against administrative decisions

In future, it will also be possible to lodge an object to an official decision by email. Currently, this can only be done electronically in a qualified manner (e.g., with a qualified electronic signature).

The draft bill was sent to the federal states and associations today and published on the website of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV). Interested parties can submit comments until March 6, 2026. The comments submitted by the associations will be published on the BMJV website.

The law is scheduled to come into force on January 1, 2027.

Source:

Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, press release No. 6/2026 of 2 February 2026.