The Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz is Germany’s Courts Constitution Act, the federal statute that organizes the country’s ordinary court system. It sets the four-tier hierarchy, defines which court hears which type of case, governs the composition of the bench, locks in how cases get assigned to judges, and lays down the rules on public access, court language, and the removal of judges for bias. If a dispute involves civil claims, family matters, voluntary jurisdiction, or criminal charges, and no specialized court has jurisdiction, the GVG is the law that routes it.
What Ordinary Jurisdiction Covers
Under § 13 of the GVG, “ordinary jurisdiction” takes in civil disputes, family matters, voluntary jurisdiction proceedings, and criminal cases, unless a separate federal law assigns them elsewhere.1Gesetze im Internet. Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz Civil disputes include contract disagreements, property conflicts, and tort claims. Family matters cover divorce, custody, and maintenance. Criminal cases run from petty theft to serious violent offenses.
Several large areas sit outside the GVG. Administrative disputes, employment conflicts, social security cases, and tax litigation each have their own court systems governed by separate statutes. A wrongful-termination claim goes to a labor court, not to an ordinary court. That boundary matters, because filing in the wrong system wastes months.
The Four Tiers of Ordinary Courts
§ 12 of the GVG names the four levels: the Amtsgericht, the Landgericht, the Oberlandesgericht, and the Bundesgerichtshof.1Gesetze im Internet. Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz Each takes a different slice of cases.
Amtsgericht (Local Court)
The Amtsgericht is the entry point for most people. In civil matters it handles disputes worth €5,000 or less.2European Consumer Centre Germany. Legal Proceedings in Germany A single judge presides over civil cases, with no panel and no lay judges.3Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act – Section 22 On the criminal side, minor and mid-level offenses go either to the criminal judge sitting alone or to a Schöffengericht that includes lay judges.
Landgericht (Regional Court)
The Landgericht works at two levels. As a court of first instance, it hears civil disputes above €5,000 and certain matters assigned to it by subject, including claims against public officials for overstepping their authority and cases under the Capital Markets Model Case Act.4Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act – Section 71 In criminal matters, it handles serious offenses where the expected sentence exceeds four years. It is also the appellate court for Amtsgericht decisions in both civil and criminal cases.
Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court)
The Oberlandesgericht reviews appeals from Landgericht decisions and holds original jurisdiction over certain high-level criminal matters, including terrorism and threats to national security. Each of Germany’s sixteen states has at least one; larger states have several.
Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice)
Seated in Karlsruhe, the Bundesgerichtshof is the top of the ordinary court hierarchy.5Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act – Section 123 It does not retry facts. Its role is to make sure lower courts applied the law correctly and that legal interpretation stays consistent across the country. The Bundesgerichtshof will not reconsider whether a witness was credible, but it will reverse a judgment that misread a statute.
How Appeals Move Between Tiers
German procedure draws a sharp line between two kinds of challenge, and the distinction catches outsiders out.
Berufung
A Berufung is a full appeal that can re-examine both the facts and the law. In civil cases, it is available against first-instance judgments when the amount in dispute exceeds €600, or when the lower court grants leave to appeal. The deadline to file is one month from service of the judgment. The appellate court can take new evidence to a limited extent, making the Berufung a partial rehearing rather than a completely fresh trial.
Revision
A Revision is narrower. It challenges only legal errors, not factual findings. The lower court’s factual determinations bind the Revision court unless those findings were themselves tainted by a procedural mistake.6Gesetze im Internet. German Code of Criminal Procedure – Section 337 In criminal proceedings, a Revision can only succeed on the ground that the judgment rested on a violation of law, meaning the lower court either failed to apply a legal rule or applied one incorrectly. Access to a Revision is often conditioned on leave from the lower court, granted only when the legal question is of fundamental importance or the law needs further development.
Who Sits on the Bench
§ 1 of the GVG opens with the foundational rule that judicial power is exercised by independent courts subject only to the law.7Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act – Section 1 Professional judges are career officials who go through a rigorous training and appointment process. In criminal cases, however, they frequently share the bench with lay judges called Schöffen, ordinary citizens who vote on guilt and sentencing with the same authority as the professional judges beside them.
Criminal Bench Configurations
At the Amtsgericht, a Schöffengericht consists of one professional judge and two lay judges, hearing mid-level criminal cases. At the Landgericht, a grand criminal chamber (große Strafkammer) is composed of either three professional judges and two lay judges, or two professional judges and two lay judges, depending on complexity and expected length.8Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act – Section 76 A three-judge configuration is typically required when the trial is expected to last more than ten days or when the case involves economic offenses. A small criminal chamber (kleine Strafkammer), which hears appeals from Amtsgericht criminal judgments, consists of one professional judge and two lay judges.
How Lay Judges Are Selected
Lay judges serve five-year terms. Selection starts at the municipal level, where local councils compile nominee lists meant to reflect the community’s demographic mix in terms of age, sex, occupation, and social status.9Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act – Section 36 Inclusion on the list requires a two-thirds supermajority of the municipal assembly members present. A selection committee at the local court then picks the actual lay judges from this list, again by two-thirds majority. Only German citizens are eligible, and candidates must be at least 25 years old at the start of their term. Anyone convicted of a crime carrying more than six months’ imprisonment, or anyone under criminal investigation for an offense that could strip them of the right to hold public office, is disqualified.
Commercial Chambers
State governments can establish specialized commercial chambers (Kammern für Handelssachen) within regional courts to handle business disputes. These chambers are staffed by one professional presiding judge and two honorary commercial judges.10Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act They take disputes involving registered merchants, claims arising from bills of exchange and checks, trademark and trade-name conflicts, unfair competition claims, and matters related to the acquisition of commercial businesses. The honorary judges are not randomly chosen. They must be at least 30 years old, hold German citizenship, and be (or have been) registered as a merchant, managing director, or board member. They are appointed for five-year terms on recommendations from chambers of industry and commerce and must live or work in the chamber’s district.
The Right to a Lawful Judge
One of the GVG’s most consequential protections is the principle that nobody picks their judge. Every court maintains a Geschäftsverteilungsplan, a business distribution plan that specifies which chamber and which judge handles which types of cases. The plan is locked in before the calendar year begins.11Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act – Section 21e
The plan is drafted by the court’s Präsidium, a body made up of the court president and elected judges. The Präsidium determines the composition of each adjudicating body, appoints investigating judges, regulates substitution rules, and allocates the workload for the coming year. Because these decisions are made in advance using objective criteria, neither prosecutors, defense counsel, nor civil parties can influence which judge receives their file. This is where Germany’s commitment to judicial impartiality has teeth: the system removes human discretion from the assignment step.
Public Hearings, Court Language, and Recording Rules
Public Access
Court hearings, including the pronouncement of judgments, are open to the public under § 169 of the GVG.12Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act – Section 169 Anyone can walk into a courtroom and observe. The rule is a deliberate check against secret proceedings.
Recording Restrictions
The openness stops at cameras and microphones. Audio recordings, television broadcasts, and film recordings intended for public presentation are prohibited during hearings.12Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act – Section 169 The court may authorize audio transmission to a media workspace, but it can also restrict that transmission to protect participants or the integrity of the proceedings. For the pronouncement of decisions at the Bundesgerichtshof, broadcast recording is permitted in special cases. Recordings for scientific or historical purposes are possible in cases of exceptional contemporary significance, but those recordings cannot be included in case files or used in any other legal proceeding.
Court Language
German is the official language of all court proceedings under § 184 of the GVG. The statute also guarantees the Sorbian minority the right to use their language in courts within the Sorbian-speaking districts.13Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act – Section 184 For anyone who does not speak sufficient German, the court must provide an interpreter. In criminal proceedings, interpretation and translation costs are paid from public funds when the services are necessary for the defense or to exercise procedural rights.14European e-Justice Portal. Costs – Germany Defendants are entitled to demand an interpreter free of charge for the entire criminal proceeding.15Gesetze im Internet. German Code of Criminal Procedure – Section 114b In civil cases, interpreter and translator fees are treated as litigation costs that the parties must pay themselves.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office
The Staatsanwaltschaft investigates crimes and decides whether to charge. A public prosecution office exists at each court, but it operates independently from the judiciary it works alongside.16Gesetze im Internet. Courts Constitution Act – Section 150 Internally, the office follows a strict hierarchy, with individual prosecutors reporting up through departmental heads. At the federal level, the Generalbundesanwalt handles cases involving national security and the most serious criminal matters.
Challenging a Judge’s Impartiality
German law provides two mechanisms for removing a judge from a case, and they work very differently.
The first is automatic exclusion. A judge is removed by operation of law when certain disqualifying circumstances exist, for example if the judge is related to a party, has a financial interest in the outcome, or previously acted as a lawyer, witness, or expert in the same proceeding. No petition is needed. The exclusion applies as soon as the facts are established, and there is no deadline for raising it.
The second is a formal challenge for bias. A party who believes a judge cannot be impartial files a recusal petition laying out specific facts, and it must be filed without undue delay. The challenged judge provides an official statement, and the rest of the bench decides the motion without the challenged judge participating. If the petition is rejected, the party can file a special appeal (Beschwerde). If the petition succeeds, no appeal is available to the other side; the judge is simply removed from the case.
When You Need a Lawyer
Whether you can represent yourself depends on where your case is heard. At the Amtsgericht, parties in civil cases can appear without a lawyer. At the Landgericht and above, legal representation by a member of the bar is mandatory; you cannot file documents or argue your own case. A claim worth €5,001 lands in the Landgericht, meaning you need to budget for a lawyer on top of court fees.
In criminal proceedings, the rules work differently. A defendant can generally appear without counsel for minor offenses, but the court must appoint a defense attorney in certain situations, including cases before the Landgericht, cases where the defendant has been in custody for more than three months, and cases where the potential sentence is serious enough to warrant it. Once a matter reaches the regional court level, counsel is not optional.