(de-news.net) – Following the signing of a corresponding agreement announced by the Federal Ministry of Justice, Germany’s federal and state governments have agreed to establish a shared judicial cloud. With an initial operational version expected to be available by early 2027, the initiative aims to create a modern, sustainable IT infrastructure capable of supporting judicial operations at both the federal level and across the sixteen states.

To strengthen technological autonomy and reduce dependence on external systems, the cloud will be built on existing public-sector IT service structures and complemented by a dedicated judicial network. According to the ministry, this approach is intended to streamline routine court work, generate efficiency gains, and improve overall administrative performance. In its first phase, the joint case management application (GeFa) will be rolled out to courts in several states, while the longer-term objective is to migrate all currently developed and newly emerging specialized judicial applications to the shared cloud environment. Overall project coordination has been assigned to a development unit based in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

At the same time, the German Association of Judges has urged the federal states to accelerate the digital transformation of the judiciary by 2026. The association has pointed to persistent inefficiencies, including the continued reliance on manual scanning of paper submissions and the physical delivery of digital storage devices, which remain necessary due to limited options for fully electronic filing.

Particular criticism has been directed at Saxony-Anhalt for failing to meet the deadline for introducing electronic case files. From the association’s perspective, recent extensions granted by the federal government underscore structural shortcomings and delays that have accumulated over several years.

Emphasizing the broader objective of strengthening state capacity, Federal Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig has stressed the importance of advancing judicial digitalization, arguing that public investment must translate into visible and measurable improvements through projects such as the joint judicial cloud. To support these efforts, the federal government is allocating fifty million euros to state judicial systems this year, with annual funding of seventy million euros planned for the period from 2027 to 2029.