On September 16, 2022, an online lecture was held by Dr. Werner Richter, President of the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf, Germany, being watched by judges and other court officials across Japan.

At the opening, Secretary General HOTTA Masaya said, “When Japanese Courts are facing major challenges in its digitalization, it is very significant to learn about digitalization from Germany.”

In the lecture, Dr. Richter presented on the current situation of digitalization of civil procedure in Germany, as well as efforts to modernize civil procedure on the occasion of digitalization, such as structuring of submissions by the parties and that of proceedings. In the question and answer session, Dr. Richter and Japanese participants discussed challenges in the transitional period before case records are fully digitalized, pros and cons of videoconferencing to examine witnesses, and essential services of the court officials which should be more strengthened at the digitalized courts.

It was very helpful for Japanese judiciary considering digitalization to learn German efforts in digitalizing civil procedure.